A visit to Ballyfad Woods
Ms Rolland’s class had a trip to Ballyfad woods today where they experienced the cold weather and the beauty that it uncovers in nature. These photos are just gorgeous!
SOWING WILDFLOWER SEEDS!
Huge thanks to Ms. D’Arcy for organising the cultivation of our wildflower patch. This area is going to be absolutely beautiful when it develops and we hope the children enjoyed playing their part in sowing the seeds. Thank you to Mark D’Arcy for his help in preparing the soil.
Inland Fisheries workshop at Clone Beach
1st-3rd class enjoyed a field trip to Clone where they enjoyed a scavenger hunt exploring local biodiversity and trying fishing with Inland Fisheries Ireland! Such a fun way to explore the local ecosystems whilst enjoying beach fun too! Thank you to Cathy and Rory for this lovely day.
Orienteering/Active Walk Way
Mr. Breen’s class took advantage of the good weather to enjoy some orienteering using our Active Walkway signage. A great team activity!
Constructing conker toys!
This was such a fun lesson, creating conker toys. We used the buddy system whereby older pupils supported younger pupils to create their conker toys.
Some nature base play captured! We have big plans for nature based learning going forward and may be asking parents with skills to come on board as we develop this area. More to follow…..
FRESHLY CUT GRASS!!
We are thrilled that the grass is cut and playing on the field and in outdoor classroom has resumed!
Hallowe’en in the great outdoors!
We had so much fun decorating our Enchanted Forest with homemade decorations made from recycled materials! Such excitement , especially for our infants who buddied up with older classes! Great to listen to spooky music while we did it too! Click the link below to view
Preparing our wildflower patch! September 2022
Hedgehog Hunting!
Our Green School Committee is conducting research as part of a national tracking of hedgehogs this week. They have set out a little shelter with hedgehog suitable food and water. They have placed a mixture of oil and paint (it’s safe -we checked!!) so as to catch some footprints! So far we have no results but we have a hunch that there might be a family of hedgehogs around so fingers crossed they visit! Stay tuned!
BUG HUNTERS!
Such a lovely day to engage in some bug hunting!!
One benefit of the Covid situation has been our renewed love for the great outdoors. We have regular scheduled movement breaks to ventilate the rooms but we also find that these times have a great knock on effect for concentration in the room after a break. Children look forward to these times where they can engage in some play or sport. See below for the outdoor activities that we have been engaging in.
Click the link to read our Biodiversity Plan:Biodiversity Plan 2021
SINGING IN THE SUNSHINE!
Click the link at the top f the page to hear our sweet choir practicing for Confirmation. They are in fine voice and ejoying our outdoor classroom!
February 2022
New abode!
October 2021
A visit from Dale Treadwell Heritage in Schools Expert!
Thank you to Fiadh Russell who was the winner of a Heritage Ireland Expert visit for her drawing of a robin in lockdown. Dale Treadwell (who has worked on RTE) came to school today and treated all the children to a mini beast workshop. Dale loved our grounds and all the diversity here! We hope the children enjoyed this workshop and encourage them to tell you all about it at home!
OWL HABITAT!
Thank you Finola for organising our new Owl habitat! Isn’t it beautiful? It is part of the Barn Owl Project and we would love to see it inhabited! Thank you to Stephen Walsh (wildlife photographer) for installing it and for all the advice! As you can see it will be well guarded here!
Enjoying a game of Os and Xs!
New Swing! 31/05/2021
We love this new addition to our outdoor play area! Click on the links to see how happy our infants were to try out our new swing!
A study of our local trees by 6th class
Ms. Ní Shuilleabháin’s 6th class students compiled a really interesting study of the native trees in our field. We are very fortunate to have such a diverse range of trees to study and appreciate. The use of a tree identification app was a fun way of incorporating digital learning into the process.
Students also compiled their own projects on the trees which I will also post to the website on completion.
Great work 6th class!
World Bee Day 2021
We were delighted to welcome Micheál O’Scannail and News2Day to our school today to film our outdoor endeavours in celebration of World Bee Day!
Our students had a ball recording in the rainy weather! The wellies and raincoats certainly came in handy!
We are delighted to see the fruits of our labour already – click on this video to see one of our stripy visitors busy at work!
We are so proud of 2nd/3rd class for their super representation of us. We can’t wait to hear their biodiversity rap on RTÉ at 4.20 today!
Our beautiful new signage!
Our beautiful new signage!
19/05/2021
Thank you so much to Thomás’ Mum and Dad for erecting our fairy doors around school and in our woodland walkway! Don’t they look amazing?
Thank you to Jack and Michael’s Dad, Clea and Zac and his grandad for making these wonderful doors! Thank you to 6th class for decorating them! Such beautiful habitats for our local fairies!
14/05/2021
How beautiful is our unmown ‘long acre’?! We hope the pollinators come to visit!
Toadstools for our fairy walkway!
13/05/2021
We were delighted to receive delivery of our beautiful toadstools from The Concrete Lady! They are a beautiful addition to our woodland walkway and I’m sure that our fairies will love their new habitats! Lilian, Charlotte, Tabitha and Hannah found the perfect spots for them!
Our fun new planters!
Well done to all our students who were involved in painting these upcycled tyres. More to follow ……
Our Junior Infants are enjoying building their woodpile habitats for mini beasts!
They also enjoy a movement break in our woodland area!
12/05/2021
We have repotted our plants. They had germinated so well that we planted some seedlings out into our school veg garden! We are growing broad beans, spinach, peas, beetroot, radish, onion and lettuce!
11/05/2021
Our 6th class students are taking great pride in developing the walkway for younger students, putting their artistic talents to great use.
We will update photos as they finish! Well done all!
Please please the bees!
2nd/3rd class are looking forward to their interactive workshop with The National Museum of Ireland tomorrow around theme of Bees. They have been really buzzzzzzzy preparing for the workshop and will have lots of questions!
Here is their classroom window -we love their art!
Pictured: Our bee habitats ready for Beeville! Stay tuned!
We are proud to be supporters of the All Ireland Pollinator Plan!
07/05/2021
Look at these happy faces as they fill our recycled planters! These will be transformed artistically next week, so stay tuned!
Sunflower challenge
We are delighted to support Amelia’s sunflower challenge in conjunction with Scoil Eoghain, Moville. The challenge is in memory of Amelia Mullan, her brother and father who lost their lives in an accident last year. Amelia had a special grá for sunflowers and would have been in first class. As such, Ms. Walker’s senior and first class would be happy to link in with this lovely initiative.
Update: See how much our sunflowers have grown!!
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Click on the link above to see the finch who has arrived for dinner!
May 2021
Many thanks to local nature lover Cathy Lee who donated her time and a beautiful hawthorn tree to us for May Day. We are learning about the custom of Bealtaine in the context of outdoor learning. Our students brought in ribbons to decorate the May trees and hopefully keep good luck on our side (if folklore is to be believed!)
Students fully engaged and enjoying a capacity demonstration in their outdoor Maths class with Ms. Carroll!
April 2021
We downloaded a great app, Leafsnap – Plant Identification. Our 6th class students have had a great time photographing bark and leaves in our woodland and using the app to identify the various species.
We love this integration between SESE and digital literacy! We are learning so much about nature!
We are enjoying exploring the SESE and SPHE (among other subjects) curriculum outdoors. Our children are loving getting their hands dirty as they learn about biodiversity, ecosystems and nature.. Stay tuned…..
We have been blessed with the recent good weather and have taken advantage of the brilliant learning opportunities outdoors.
Planting new plants to attract the pollinators under the watchful eye of one of our neighbours!
Look at the happiness and engagement in these photos! We believe that children learn in a variety of ways, through multiple intelligences. We hope to pique their interests and talents through a variety of learning opportunities
26/04/2021
Enjoying Monday Maths in our outdoor classroom with Ms. Morris!
23/04/2021
Wow! What a beautiful legacy for Alannah in 6th class to leave our school. Many thanks to Alannah’s dad of Noctor Furniture for our beautifully crafted outdoor classroom blackboards; one for teacher and one for our students to enjoy at breaktime at their height!
* Please ensure children are wearing sun screen daily as we will take advantage of outdoor learning opportunities from now on. Sun hats are also permitted.
Have a lovely weekend!
* The field is a hive of activity for outdoor lessons in SESE and PE. Here is a picture of 6th class enjoying rounders for their PE lesson while 4th/5th were enjoying a different PE lesson on the other pitch.
I have been listening to happy chatter all day as I hear our busy students digging, playing with the mud kitchen (right up to 6th class!) and enjoying Aistear outdoors.
Long may this weather continue!
* Pictured: Carmel and her husband giving up their free time on Saturday to prepare ground for our meadow area, thank you! Carmel and Finola are working hard on a Biodiversity Champion programme that we will be rolling out over the next few months and into the future. We are really excited about this as it will educate our children from an SESE, SPHE and social citizenship perspective. We hope that their hands-on involvement will teach them more than any book can!
* Also pictured: our students cooking up a feast in the mud kitchen, I think it is vegan day!
Thank you to Thomas Hope and family for the wonderful donation of these bird boxes to our outdoor classroom. We have big plans for this whole area in the coming months!
We think our school looks so vibrant with the new paintwork and some lovely additions to our outdoor classroom, thanks to Alison and Lucas’ mum Fiona! The field was dry today and the children really enjoyed playing football on the grass and using their little imaginations in the woodland.
March 2021
Jessica and Alison decorated stones beautifully and these enhance our outdoor classroom!
Some of Mr. Breen’s pupils tidying the raised bed.
What a fantastic morning to plant sunflowers. It’s great having our outdoor classroom for these projects! Thanks Carmel
MUD KITCHEN!
Look at our beautiful mud kitchen, the latest addition to our outdoor classroom!
Ms. Byrne’s class enjoying an al fresco lunch on #InternationalOutdoorClassroomDay!
Thanks to our fantastic team, we have developed an outdoor classroom. We are continuing to add to it and will upload pictures as items are added. It is wonderful to see stories being read and investigations being carried out outside!
Today we received our throne!! Huge thanks to our anonymous donor! Bart makes a great king, don’t you think?
Hot Chocolate!
What a way to do procedural writing! Infants explored the step by step process of making hot chocolate and were then treated to one (with marshmallows!) in our outdoor classroom by Ms. Hearne!
