During the last month, the boys and girls have been collecting many essential items for homeless people, which have now been donated to PATH, Portlaoise. This was organised by the Parents Association and when the representatives from PATH came to visit the children they were very grateful for the huge amount of items that they will now take to distribute to some very worthy people.

Rang 3 had a visit from some members of Stradbally and Portlaoise Fire Stations recently. With the upcoming season of lights and candles at Christmas, it was a timely reminder to check out our fire safety procedures both at home and in school.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in many classes these days. Junior Infants are creating North Pole vibes in their classroom with Santa and his elves and many Arctic animals to be seen roaming around while 6th Class  got into groups, collaborated with each other and created a beautiful Nativity inspired mural which hangs proudly in the  hallway.

2nd Class have been working on the theme of Houses and Homes during the last fortnight. The mini architects have been drawing plans, creating and constructing and have a city of various buildings on display for all to see.

Rang 6 and Rang 1 got together to do some shared reading on Friday. It was lovely for the two classes to get together and read whist getting to know one another.

The children in a First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth classes were treated to a visit by Heritage in Schools biodiversity expert, Edel Heeran. at the end of November. Edel brought her beekeeping equipment and some local honey for us to taste whilst explaining the importance of bees and other pollinators to the environment and economy. Her visit included a walk about to look at the biodiversity around the school. Thanks to Laois Co Co and Heritage in Schools for funding the visit.

Third Class and Junior Infants got together last week to share some stories with one another. The Third Class pupils chose some books from the Junior Infant library and worked in small groups to present the stories to their young buddies. It was a genuine learning experience that was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

In Rang 3, we talked about the sciene of lava lamps. We filled glasses most of the way with vegetable oil.

Next, we filled the rest of the glasses with water.

We added a few drops of food colouring, we broke an alka-seltzer tablet into a few small pieces, and dropped them in one at a time.

Then, we watched our lava lamps erupt into activity!

In Senior Infants, we experimented with capillary action during one of our experiments during Science Week. We got paper towels, glasses of water and some food colouring. We discovered that the adhesive force between the paper towel and the water are more powerful than the cohesive force inside the water itself. This resulted in the paper towel pulling the water up. and creating a very colourful “water rainbow”

Science Week 2022 has arrived and all classes have been busy embracing the many strands in the Science curriculum. In Junior Infants we explored forces and magnetism. We spent some time sorting objects according to whether they were attracted to magnets or not. We experimented with objects in water, we had fun with our magnet mazes, we created faces by moving the parts around with magnets and we had races with our magnet powered cars!