The Great Travel Challenge
Our Green Schools Committee have had a busy two weeks during the Big Travel Challenge. We have being doing our best to promote sustainable, green ways of travelling to school to reduce emissions in Portlaoise and make getting to school a safer, fun experience for all.
We had an online meeting with the other schools in Portlaoise that are taking part in the Travel Cluster where we discussed ideas to encourage as many people as possible to walk, cycle, car- pool, park and stride or take the bus to school.
We then met up again as a committee, to make a plan for our school and did out a timetable of events to take place. We surveyed parents (Huge thanks to all the parents who responded – our response rate has been the best of all the schools in the town so far!) We surveyed every child in the school three times over the course of the the two weeks and recorded the scores to see if there was an improvement in numbers travelling sustainably. We applied for more bike/scooter parking to cater for the increasing number of students needing it. We organised a whole school assembly with the wonderful Michéle from the Green Schools, to teach us more about the benefits of walking. cycling, taking the scooter, and park and striding to school. Our 5th and 6th class wrote very moving, love letters to the earth – Check out our beautiful display in the entrance to see these inspiring pieces! Our Green Schools Committee organised a colouring competition for all the classes, art lessons for younger classes and gorgeous displays with the older classes. We put an extra special emphasis on our WOW Day on the 12th of February where we all came dressed in red to show our love for the earth. This has definitely been our best WOW day to date with record numbers taking part! We finished off our two weeks with a beautiful walk in the People’s Park.
Well done to all the children and parents in our school for engaging so enthusiastically with all the activities. We can’t wait to organise some more events in the near future – Watch this space!
Winners of the Great Travel Challenge Colouring Competition
Congratulations to the lucky winners of our colouring competition. Well done to all who entered! The Green Schools Committee had their work cut out for them trying to choose a winner from each class. The winners are: Junior Infants: Ella
Senior Infants : Zahra
1st Class : Dhyan
2nd Class : Rouaa
3rd Class : Abigail
4th Class : Ava
5th Class : Izabella F
6th Class : Sinéad
Heritage in Schools Lego Workshop
1st and 2nd Class had a fantastic afternoon with Jessica Farrell, Lego artist, learning all about biodiversity. They put their new found knowledge to good use and created their own bees and a wildflower garden. The children’s imagination and creativity was incredible. Check out some of their masterpieces in the photos.
Fun with Lego – Future architects and engineers!
We have been busy building in 1st and 2nd Class.
The Princess and the Pea – 1st/2nd Class Rap
What a great bunch of actors we have in 1st and 2nd Class. They performed a rap version of ‘The Princess and the Pea’! Well done to all the boys and girls on a stellar performance. We are so proud of you.
High Five for 1st and 2nd Class
Look at these wonderful hand sketches! We used sketching pencils to create light and shadow to give a 3D effect. Aren’t they so realistic! Can you spot your one? What an amazing bunch of artists we have in 1st and 2nd Class.
End the Year with a Bang! 1st and 2nd June 2024
Our last month in this school year! It is so hard to believe it. This year has gone so fast.
This month has been busy, between finishing our school work and having fun! We had a drama teacher visit our school and we were lucky to have a class with them. It was really fun.
We were learning about the signs of summer and what we might see outside. We went on a nature walk to see if we should spot any signs of summer. We even got to roll down a hill (or two). We collected lots of different leaves and flowers. We have been using chalk outside at break time to create some wonderful artwork. For P.E. we got to try out a different sort of obstacle course/stations. We had to run to each station and do what it said on the card. We pretended to wriggle like a worm, cry like a baby, howl like a dog and so many other funny ones.
Ms Grant got us and the infants a bubble machine. It is really cool and it blows so many bubbles. We also had our sports day but that deserves its own post. On a rare sunny day, we went down to the park for lunch and to play in the playground, we even went rambling though the woods. And guess what we found, fairy doors! We did not see any fairies, they were hiding really well. We also had our end-of-year talent show and we made a special presentation to Ms. Buggie as the next time we see her she will be married. We wish Ms Buggie and her Husband to be the very best for the future.
This is my last post as Ms Grant in Maryborough National School. It has been a pleasure to work with you and get to know you all this year. Maryborough N.S. and of course my wonderful 1st and 2nd class will always hold a special place in my heart.
Thank you all
Ms. Grant
School Tour to Lullymore – May 2024
We had a fantastic day at Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park!
We were met by such a warm welcome from the staff. We got to see different animals and we got a really cool train ride! The children sang the whole way around the park. We had a fantastic time playing in the playground! 1st and 2nd class had a wonderful time at Lullymore and they were so lucky to get a yummy an ice-cream on the way home. We all had such a great time.
May Madness!
May was such a busy month for 1st and 2nd Class. We were very lucky to go on our school tour to Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park. It was a great day! We started to learn how to weave, it was very hard at first but with practice, we were brilliant at it. We weaved a blanket for a llama, gave a fish colourful scales and we made doilies out of wool. We also made some crazy paintings by using straws to blow the paint.
We had so much fun doing just dance videos, we are getting really good at them. We enjoyed lunchtime out in the sunshine! We have been so lucky with the weather. One of our pupils won an amazing bronze, silver and gold in his gymnastics competition! Well done we are so proud of you. We have been so busy but we are having so much fun!
