We have been collecting shoeboxes in school over the last few weeks for the Team Hope Shoebox appeal. Thank you to everyone who made a shoebox and brought it into school as well as those who donated online – 46 shoeboxes were collected today. We know these shoeboxes will make a lot of children very happy when they receive their special Christmas gifts.
This week is Science Week – there were lots of investigations and experiments going on in all the classrooms! As well as being great fun, we were using lots of Science skills – we were planning, predicting, making, observing, measuring, investigating, questioning, recording, analysing, and evaluating!
The Junior Room mixed bread soda and vinegar to making dancing raisins and explored diffusion with skittles.
1st and 2nd Class explored forces, investigating how different objects moved on a ramp, changing the height and surface of the ramp and comparing this with their original results. They also made a lava lamp – they discovered that oil and water do not mix!
3rd and 4th Class focused on the topic of Colour for Science Week. They enjoyed investigating capillary action, chemical reactions and mixing colours.
5th and 6th Class had dancing raisins, volcanoes, slime, lava lamps and bouncy eggs in their room! They also completed a Marble Run challenge – they had to design and make a marble run.
To finish off our Science celebrations, we are looking forward to a visit from Dr. Naomi Lavelle of Dr. How’s Science Wows next week when she comes to visit with The Eccentric Energy Show!
This morning in Assembly, Mrs McGuigan told us a little about the Creative Schools project that we will be taking part in over the next 2 years. We started thinking about what it means to be creative, and some of the things we might like to get involved in as part of the project.
This afternoon, Ultan O’Brien, our Creative Associate for the project, came to meet us to introduce himself as we start our Creative Schools journey. We are really looking forward to seeing him again in a fortnight to explore more of how we can be a Creative School.
The winning slogan for our Active School Flag this year was announced today – we had lots of wonderful suggestions, but the Active School Committee decided on:
We are really looking forward to putting this slogan into practise next week when we start our 4 week ‘Active Break Every Day’ challenge – we will be learning lots of new skills from some of Ireland’s Olympians as part of the Olympic Movement Breaks.
We also presented our awards for Reading, Handwriting and Excellent Effort during October in assembly this morning – well done everyone!
We have had a busy couple of days before we finished for our mid-term holiday!
Yesterday, we were invited by the FOCUS Centre across the road here in Killeshandra to visit their Loft Café. We couldn’t believe the selection of games they had available for us – board games, air hockey, table football, art and craft materials, giant floor games – the list goes on! They also provided us with a delicious treat. Thank you so much to Bernie and the staff from the FOCUS Centre for the invitation, we really enjoyed our time and are looking forward to our next visit!
We also had our first Active School Committee meeting of the year with our new committee. They have lots of fantastic ideas already about how we can keep being an active school as we work towards renewing our Active School Flag this year.
Today was Dress Up Day – there were all sorts of creatures coming into school this morning!
The Junior Room had great fun making mummies!
This afternoon, the Senior Room were testing their catapults that they made for their STEM challenge this week.
Have a lovely mid-term break everyone!
This week is Maths Week – there’s been lots of extra Maths activities going on in all the classrooms to celebrate!
The Junior Room had a great week – often without even realising they were doing Maths!
The Middle Room were also busy playing lots of Maths games – we played What’s my number?, card games, Sums Up and even Snakes and Ladders – Nathracha agus Dréimire – in Gaeilge!
The Senior Room went on a trip to Cavan Institute on Thursday 19th October. A mathematician did a presentation for an hour – there were lots of fun puzzles and Maths games. We enjoyed some treats, them Shane (one of the lecturers in the Institute) did some more fun emoji equations with us.
We also had a chance to look around the dog grooming room. Deirdre brought us around and it was fascinating to learn about how dogs are groomed. The room was full of great equipment which Deirdre explained to us.
Thank you so much to Deirdre for organising this great trip for 5th and 6th Class.
The Middle and Senior Rooms also spent some time investigating tubs of Celebrations. There was lots of Maths talk, problem solving, estimating, sort, calculating, fractions, probability and data involved. There was also the added bonus of a sweet treat at the end! When we compared both tins, they had almost identical numbers of sweets – the Middle Room had one more to enjoy!
One of the highlights of the week was Tuesday afternoon. We split into our teams for the first time this year and spent time playing Maths games. It was great fun to get together in our teams, and we enjoyed lots of different games and activities.
Congratulations to one of our 6th Class pupils who won a colouring competition organised by Nearby, one of the shops here in Killeshandra. She was the all-Ireland winner in this competition and received a gift voucher for Smyths.
Not only that, Nearby also presented the school with a cheque for €150 as part of her prize. Very well done, we are so proud of you!
Many thanks to Bernie and all the staff at the FOCUS Centre for inviting 5th and 6th Class to their coffee morning which was held as part of World Mental Health Day. The children enjoyed hot chocolate and lots of treats. Thanks again to everyone at the FOCUS Centre for their wonderful hospitality.
The Junior Room went to the Johnston Central Library in Cavan today for a storytelling session with Pat Ryan. We heard a story about the runaway pancake, Phoebe who lived on a boat and a dark, dark castle with an electrician hiding in the cupboard!
We played a listening game called Lock and Key and sang a song called A big red bus.
We then visited the Children’s section of the Library and had some time to look at the books.
On the way home, we stopped at Farnadolly Milk Barn and sampled some bubblegum and chocolate flavoured milk. Caroline was there and she gave us some lovely cow stickers. We had a great day!
We also presented our awards for September in assembly this morning – our Reader and Handwriter of the Month, as well as a new award for Excellent Effort. Well done everyone!
We made the most of the good weather today for our September walk. We went down to the football pitches and walked or ran laps. It was lovely to be out in the beautiful autumn sunshine!
We also had a Non-uniform Day today to raise funds for the Parents’ Association – we enjoyed choosing what we could wear to school this morning!
Today is World School Milk Day. This morning, the Middle and Senior Room watched a webinar produced by Agri Aware and the National Dairy Council to celebrate World School Milk Day with ‘Lá Fhéile Bainne’. It was very interesting to see around a dairy farm – we learned about the importance of grass, how cows are milked and the benefits of including dairy products in our diet.
We were delighted to welcome some representatives from Lakeland Dairies into school today. Their CEO, Colin Kelly, told us a little bit about what the company does and answered lots of our questions. They also very kindly brought us some flavoured milk – thank you very much to everyone at Lakeland Dairies.
