We had great fun last week collecting copper coins for the Parents’Association fundraiser for Ipads. We searched everywhere for 1c,2c and 5c coins and set about filling the vases. The first to fill their vase were the boys and girls from 6th Class and they are eagerly awaiting their free pizza for lunch and, of course, their night off homework! The vases are now empty and we are waiting to see what will happen in May!
Head on over to the Parents’Association page to read the full story!
In spite of the odd shower of sleet,Second Class really enjoyed the month of April this year! In between the showers, they took to the outdoors and explored the local hedgerows for flora and fauna. They discovered lesser periwinkle and lesser celandine flowers. They saw that the crops had grown since winter and also spotted some blackbirds and pigeons flying to their nests. They found insects and collected flowers and were got lots of inspiration for some lovely colourful spring artwork. They definitely had a ‘spring’ in their step after all the great work!
Last October saw the beginning of the end for 1c and 2c coins in Ireland. So, at our most recent meeting, someone had the bright idea of collecting these redundant coins and adding them to the fund which we are building up to provide Ipads for the children in our school. Yvonne from All Occasions Flowers provided 8 very tall vases for us, we launched the appeal for coins and promised that the class who would fill the vase first would be treated to pizza for lunch and a night off homework.
Well…! Little did we think that a night off homework and free pizza would appeal to the children so much! We had set aside the whole month of May for the project, but on Day 1, it was obvious that every jar and piggy bank was emptied and many of the vases were well on the way to being filled. 6th Class were in the lead , but that night every other class dug deep and arrived to school on Day 2 with every last 1c and 2c that they could find! It was neck and neck between some of the classes until 6th Class arrived and filled their vase over the brim!!
The vases have now been emptied and dispatched to our very own Ipad piggy bank! Watch this space for further developments after the bank holiday weekend.
The boys and girls in Fourth Class were selected to take part in PIRLS 2016 recently. According to their website, PIRLS 2016 is the fourth cycle of the IEA Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).It is “an assessment of reading comprehension that has been monitoring trends in student achievement at five-year intervals in countries around the world since 2001”. PIRLS gathers information about supports for literacy, curriculum implementation, and school resources in each participating country.
The children first undertook a pen and paper comprehension last Friday, April 8th and on the following Monday, they did the online section of the assessment. A suite of computers was brought to school by the administrators of the assessment and, thanks to the high speed broadband which we currently have in our school, the children successfully and quickly completed the assessment. Some of the comments afterwards ranged from “exciting”, “easy”, “difficult”, “fun” to “challenging”, “interesting”, and “a small bit hard”!!
Most of us had never heard of Izak9 until, one day, 2 very large boxes containing 27 cubes each appeared in our classroom.We, in 5th Class, soon learned that Maths was about to become a fun, group based activity where we would help one another develop our problem solving skills.We are enjoying Izak9 so much that 6th Class are also going to start using it to improve their skills. To learn more about Izak9, click on this link.
This week our theme in Junior Infants was all about birds, nests, eggs and all things related! Caoimhe’s Dad found a nest in the forestry and Caoimhe very kindly brought it in to show it to us. Having seen it, we decided to build our very own nests. We gathered lots of different materials and, as you can see, our results were very impressive.
Hurling season is here again. Children from 4th class upwards have dusted off their hurls and helmets and taken to the pitch under the guidance of Mr. Conway and Mr O’Mahoney. This term, the boys will play Ballinakill, Killadooley, Borris-in-Ossory, Durrow and Mountrath. The girls will pit their skills against The Rock, Shanahoe, Ballyroan and Castlecuffe. As always we are very grateful to Park Ratheniska GAA club for the use of their fantastic facilities.
5th and 6th Classes had the opportunity recently to try out their golfing skills thanks to a tutorial organised by Golf Ireland in association with The Heath Golf Club. We enjoyed practising our putting and driving skills on the inflatable driving range and putting green. We will have an opportunity to further develop our skills during the Summer when juvenile sessions will be held at The Heath Golf Club. Many thanks to one of our parents, Anne O’Loughlin, for organising everything.
