On Tuesday 14th June all classes celebrated our annual Sports Day.
In the morning we had our final swimming lesson in Clonmel pool.
The children were allowed to get a little treat in the vending machine following this, which nearly took as long as the swimming lesson itself!!

Back at the school the children were divided into four teams with each of the 6th class as captains. All children had to come up with a unique team name. 
After much deliberation the team names were: Gucci Sketchers (Fred's team), Fake converse (Alexis' Team) , 8 amigos (Gerard's Team) and the Lucky Team (Grace's Team).

All teams participated in Long Jump, High Jump, Sprint, Sack Race, Egg and Spoon Race and 3 legged races.

At the end of the day the winners were the aptly named 'The Lucky Team'.
Well done everyone!

We also had a visit from the ice cream van and everyone enjoyed a '99' at the end of the day!

On Thursday 9th June, our Senior Room pupils journeyed to Dr. Morris park in Thurles for a small school GAA blitz. Our 3rd class boys opted to play hurling and I was blown away at their hurling skills. They really worked together as a team.

Our 4th, 5th and 6th class all decided to play football and were all selected for different teams, which meant they were against their school friends at times and had to learn to work as a team with other pupils from different schools. Each team played 3 -4 matches. The students from Killurney N.S. played so well and left nothing on the pitch!!

Well done everyone!

After the blitz, we walked to Semple Stadium and were given a private tour. The children got to meet Conor Bowe, senior hurler and ask him some questions. They got a tour of the dressing rooms and the opportunity to run through the tunnel and out on to the pitch just as the players do. We were thrilled to see Killurney N.S. on the score board. The children got to lift some of this year's silverwear also. (Which unfortunately, isn't that much this year!!)

The children loved the blitz and the tour of Semple Stadium but I think their favourite part of the day was stopping for ice cream on the way home!!

All pupils were delighted to be invited back to the Clonmel Show 'Pedigree Day' on Friday 3rd June.

One of our own pupils, Fred ffrench Davis was proud to show off his chickens, pigs and mother and daughter duo, sheep Jess and Jean! 

The children were delighted to use a real spinning wheel and to hear about the inner workings of life in a bee hive with some local bee keepers!

School Tour 
8th June 2022

On the 8th June all our students from Junior Infants - 6th class travelled to Castlecomer Discovery Park for our school tour. We had not had a school tour since 2019 so everyone was so excited, including the teachers!! 

Our junior infants, 1st class and 2nd class engaged in a range of activities including the Junior Woodland Adventure Course (a low ropes obstacle course encouraging balance, agility and risk), the bouncing net, Woodland Bug detectives (A habitat study of woodland invertebrates) and Water Scientists. (A habitat study of water-based invertebrates).

Our 2nd - 6th class pupils completed the Tree-Top Adventure Walk (14 challenges set among the sycamore trees, 7m off the ground), the 10 meter climbing wall, Water Scientists (Ecology) and Team challenges (which included Team-building games and challenges). 

The children then enjoyed a picnic and some time in the playground. Thankfully the weather stayed fine for most of the day and a great day was had by all!

​May in the Senior Room
The senior room had a busy May and have started preparations for Confirmation this coming June. To coincide with this, the Confirmation pupils visited Glencomeragh Retreat Centre on Wednesday 11th May. Here they had a very fun day team building, re-connecting and building resilience. They really enjoyed the quizzes, talks and time spent outside in the good weather.
In class this month 3rd to 6th class  had a visit from Clonmel Fire House. They learnt about fire hazards around the home and what to do in the event of a fire. Children got to see a real-life fire experiment to demonstrate how smoke rises and also received fun safety packs to bring home.
As part of our visual arts this month the children have been learning the cup song in music and in art class  have been looking at photography and installation art.
 
May in the Junior Room
This month, the junior room have been celebrating the beginning of summer by learning all about seasonal flowers and sewing seeds. They planted cress seeds in class which grew into silly haired monsters. They explored the theme of “The Garden Centre” in Aistear, in which they constructed different types of flowers from bun cases and straws, designed and built a garden centre using small world materials and created their own flower shop for role play. 
In visual arts, children focused on natural still life this month. They drew sunflowers and parts of different types of leaves and plants from observation while developing their knowledge of line, scale, blind drawing and shading.
In SESE children learnt all about the digestive system and had great fun carrying out a gross experiment. They used cream crackers, coca cola, sandwich bags and a pair of tights to demonstrate what happens to food as it travels from one end of the body to the other.
 
May 9th-May 13th , we celebrated Creative Schools Week. As part of this, the whole school took part in one final podcasting workshop with Muireann our Creative School’s Associate . The senior room children put their knowledge to use and in small teams they went about creating and designing a slot for a radio station while learning about using microphones and audio technology. Meanwhile, the junior room pupils names and created their own Q and A podcasts around the theme of biodiversity and gardening. They had great fun listening back on themselves, editing their pieces and inserting sound effects.
On 10th May, we resumed swimming lessons in Clonmel pool for a block of six weeks. The children were thrilled to be back in the water, having been unable do go as part of a school group for the past few years. All pupils are also continuing to enjoy Zumba lessons with Kool School each Friday afternoon. They are learning new moves and routines each week.  

​We had a very busy lead up to the Easter holidays in Killurney N.S.
We continued to engage in textile workshops with Carrie Lynam in which the children constructed a whole school collaborative piece of textile art, based on the theme of “New life in Spring”. The infants made wooly sheep and cotton flowers while the older pupils hand wove flower stems and made buds using looms. The senior room also stitched the names of some of the techniques they used into hessian for our display. Children from every class also took part in a taster podcasting workshop with Muireann, our Creative Schools Associate. They created scripts, learnt how to count themselves in on the microphone, and recorded and edited themselves using Keynote. They loved listening back over themselves on head sets and are looking forward to another workshop soon as part of our Creative Schools Week 9th-13th May.  
The senior room completed their biodiversity garden designs, which we have submitted to Graham Fitzpatrick from Biodiversity in Schools, who is currently giving us his expert advice on how to proceed with implementing our plans.
The junior room have been busy learning all about France in SESE. The first and second class researched various topics associated with the country and then took over as teachers, presenting projects to the junior and senior infants to share what they had learnt. We also had a French food tasting day in which the children got to sample baguettes, croissants, pain-au-chocolat and macarons.
On Monday 4th April, the senior room accompanied by Miss Hogan, attended Penance in Kilcash church with Fr. Carey.
All children entered the Clonmel Flower Show art competition. Junior infants to second class painted a Spring picture while third to sixth class made and decorated , paper maché Easter eggs. We were delighted to hear that we had several winners in the competition.  Well done to Grace O` Sullivan, Rebecca Dunne, Frankie Burke, Fred ffrench Davis, Ellie O Donnell, Clara O Donnell, Lily Burke, Ella-Rose Morrissey and Lucy Meagher.
On the 8th April, the day of the Easter holidays, Miss Hogan and the senior room designed and organized an Easter egg scavenger hunt for the junior room as part of our orienteering strand in PE. The children had to follow the clues around the school grounds in order to find and collect stamps. Thankfully, everyone was a winner at the end and received a prize of Cadburys Easter egg going home.
After the Easter break, the children began Zumba lessons with Niall from Kool School and are continuing to take part in GAA skills coaching once a week. We are braced for an action-packed term 3 here in Killurney N.S. with swimming lessons, school tours and much more to look forward to. 

​February and March in Killurney N.S. have been action packed to date. We began February by celebrating St. Brigid`s Day. All children learnt about the history of St. Brigid and the senior room made St. Brigid`s crosses from rushes brought in by one of the pupils, while the junior room made their own , colourful versions using pipe cleaners. After the February mid-term, we re-commenced GAA coaching with John and Keith. All pupils were delighted to get back to this. On Tuesday, 1st March, we celebrated Pancake Tuesday. The children had great fun making pancake batter and cooking their own pancakes with Ms Hogan. They had even more fun eating them after!
On Thursday 3rd March we celebrated World Book Day. All pupils dressed up as their favorite book character/ author and created projects which they presented to their classes. We were very impressed with the effort and creativity that went into all of the costumes and posters. Congratulations to Alexis Roche Nagle and Ella-Rose Morrissey who won the overall prizes for best costume and project in the senior and junior room.
As part of our Creative Schools initiative, the children have been taking part in various workshops in Textile Sculpture and Biodiversity over the past few weeks. On Monday 14th March, Graham Fitzpatrick from Biodiversity in Schools returned to us. The junior room learnt about the local habitat of the school grounds and completed a scavenger hunt. The senior room worked with Graham to plan and design an outdoor biodiversity garden and play/ learning space for the school grounds which we will continue to work on and develop towards the end of the school year. All pupils have also been engaging in workshops with Textile Sculpture artist Carrie Lynam, in which they are working on a collaborative textile installation. We have been learning all about the different fabrics and fibers used to make different things and where they come from as well as the journey our clothes make from their raw material to reach us.  The junior room have been learning to sew using a needle, finger weaving, finger knitting and loom weaving while the senior room have been learning finger knitting, weaving and embroidery stitching.  
This month the whole school also collaborated to create a spring window display, which is visible in our main school window for all passers by to see.
Other activities in the Senior Room
These past few weeks, the senior room have been very busy. In February, the children learnt about the history of Saint Valentine and created some beautiful Mondrain and paint and print works. The children also partook in a thematic project on China. They also studied the lives, culture and historical influence of the Benin people of East Africa. They created projects on various topics ie. Clothes, food, war and history, culture and kings, farming and homes, art, religion, language and gods.  They made instruments called Kalimbras for music and created bronze statues from cardboard during art.
 
Other activities in the Junior Room
The junior room have been learning all about spring and new life in Aistear. Junior and Senior infants constructed farms and farm yards. They learnt all about the life cycle of a frog and painted frog portraits. In history, they learnt about what school was like when their parents and grandparents were young. They made a list of questions about school life in the past and then interviewed an older family member at home. They then shared their answers with the class and we made a comparison profile of school now versus school long ago. 

​We had a very busy December and January in Killurney N.S. In December, all pupils took part in the Jack B. Yates “Painting and Memory “ competition with the National Gallery of Ireland. The children engaged in two poetry workshops with local poet and past pupil, Eileen Acheson, in which they composed a collaborative poem entitled “The Flowers of Killurney”. All pupils from 1st class up also took part in stitching lessons with their class teachers in which they created beautiful stitched flowers and images on hessian to accompany the poem display. We were absolutely delighted then, to hear that our school was awarded a highly commended place in the competition for which the school will be receiving a framed reproduction work by Jack B. Yates to hang on our wall.
Anyone passing by the school recently may also have noticed our beautiful “Winter wonderland” and “Winter Robins” display in the main front window. Before Christmas, every child in the school contributed to the painting and design of this with the help of local teacher Mrs Mary Meagher. On Friday 10th December, the whole school got wore their Christmas jumpers for Christmas Jumper Day in Aid of the Children`s Health foundation and raised  for 334 euro for Crumlin, Temple Street, Tallagh and Connolly Hospitals. 
The Senior room also created their own classroom installations of nutcrackers and designed a giant advent calendar. Our 6th class girls, led a Christmas cookie designing workshop for all pupils in the school. As unfortunately we could not host a live production again this year, the 3rd to 6th class pupils created their own musical rendition of “The Night before Christmas”. Children worked in their pods to create art work and record sound effects for each part of the poem. The project was then sent home to parents digitally on the day of the Christmas holidays.  Both classes had a very special zoom call from Santa in the North Pole on the day of the holidays, just to check in before Christmas. Thankfully, we were all on the nice list!
The day before the holidays, we also held our annual Christmas Hamper Raffle draw. We had 14 beautiful hampers and managed to raise €996 euro for the school. A huge thank you to all of our families for their generous support and congratulations again to our 14 winners.
Since we have returned in January, the junior room have been busy learning all about “The Chinese New Year” in Aistear. They created lanterns using collage and paper weaving and also constructed their own New Years Parades. They learnt all about the Tiger for the year of 2022 and learnt how to write the names of each animal in the Chinese zodiac in Mandarin. 1st and 2nd class wrote, edited and published their own fairytales in their creative writing workshop and then read them out to the infants during story time.
 On 27th January, as part of our Creative Schools Initiative, we had a visit from Graham Fitzpatrick from Biodiversity in Schools. We learnt all about the native birds in Ireland, as well as some interesting facts about where birds came from. The junior room listened to the calls and songs of all the different bird species while the senior room took part in some outdoor games and challenges. All pupils in the school also made their own environmentally friendly, clay bird feeders which they could either bring home, or hang up in the school. 

We returned to school after the October Mid-Term into a jam-packed month of activity here in Killurney National School.
​
On 3rd November, the school hosted anti-bullying and online safety workshops for all pupils from 1st class upwards with Bully4U as part of the SPHE curriculum. We also hosted a parent talk on cyber safety which all attendees found very informative.

We celebrated Science Fortnight from the 8th-19th November during which the children engaged with in a variety of science webinars, conducted experiments and participated in a range of STEM challenges.

All pupils participated in a live Zoom webinar with The National Gallery of Ireland which involved looking at and responding to the work of Jack B. Yates.

Congratulations to Robyn O Reilly who won a prize in the local Credit Union Art competition. The theme this year was “Imagine”. Congratulations also to Lucy Meagher and Ellie O Donnell who won prizes for their posters supporting Kilsheelan in the Senior County Hurling Final.

Junior Room
This month the Junior Room explored the topic of Iceland in SESE. The first and second class completed research projects on specialized topics such as food, wildlife, myths and legends and tourist attractions which they presented to the junior and senior infants. They then assessed the infants by asking them questions based on these which they came up with themselves.  The children took part in a wide range of STEM  activities and science experiments for Science fortnight. They made their own sensory bottles and explored sound by using percussion instruments to create a “stormy seascape” and made their own panpipes using straws. They also explored the concept of melting materials by making their own hot chocolate. All pupils concurred that the result of this experiment was delicious.
In Arts and crafts, the children made pom poms to be used in a “Yarn Bombing” art installation in Clonmel. The first and second class were also introduced to stitching and created some beautiful patterns and images by stitching wool into hessian fabric.
 
Senior Room
This month the senior room looked at the 7 wonders of the world. Each pod chose a wonder which interested them and together they compiled a project on its geography, history and interesting facts connected with it. For Science Fortnight the children partook in some fun STEM activities and online workshops.  They created towers using tinfoil and came up with some fun alternative uses for a paperclip. They also attended a Zoom awareness workshop on water pollution and an interactive lesson on milk production with Teagasc. Pupils looked at the Visual Arts strand of fabric and fibre and stitched some beautiful flower creations using wool and hessian fabric.

​October was an action packed month here in Killurney National School.
 
Senior Room
 This month the senior room looked at Halloween traditions around the world with particular focus on the festival of Dia de la Muertos in Mexico. The children learnt about how people make sugar skulls and dress up as a means of celebrating their loved ones who have passed on. They created their own beautiful paper craft creations of their own sugar skull.  The children also took part in the FAI soccer showcase and created their own soccer obstacle course. They had great full doing this and also improved their soccer skills. For SESE this month the senior room learnt about Poland. They looked the different aspects of life there and created projects which they presented to the rest of their class. For STEM this month, pupils were given the task of planning , creating and overseeing a fun, COVID 19 compliant, Halloween afternoon for the school. Each pod got creative and using their maths, engineering and art skills, they created fun Halloween stations for the Junior room. Activities included Pumpkin Golf, creating lollipop ghosts, toilet roll mummies, a pumpkin relay race and pin the stalk on the pumpkin.  We were extremely impressed with their creativity and the Junior room loved it! 
 
Junior Room
This month the Junior Room also explored the topic of Halloween. They made potions in Aistear and created pieces of artwork inspired by the Julia Donaldson book “Room on the Broom” The also participated in drama lessons with Ms Grant based on the story of “The Gruffalo” and created their very own Gruffalo masks. In SESE, the children explored the theme of “When my Grandparents were Young”. They participated in shared reading of an ebook titled “The old Toy Room” and we discussed the differences between toys that children play with nowadays and those which their parents and grandparents would have played with when they were little. The children worked as historians and brought in old toys, household objects and photographs which depicted what life was like when their parents/grandparents were young and presented these to the class along with the stories of their origin.  In creative writing, 1st and 2nd class created non- chronological reports. They researched and gathered information on their favorite wild animals on the ipads using World Book Online, Dk find Out and National Geographic Kids.

Maths Week and Digital Learning
We celebrated Maths Week in the school from 18th -22nd October. The children used their “Maths Eyes”. All children in the school were challenged to find something in their environment, take a photo of it and create a maths problem to accompany their image. We compiled these into digital posters which we submitted to the Waterford Teacher`s Centre to be judged as part of a “Maths Eyes” Competition. We also kept a digital book of all entries for the school. The junior room also participated in a maths for fun morning of maths themed board games on 22nd October and participated in an outdoor  maths scavenger hunt.
 
Halloween
On Friday 22nd October, we had a spooktacular day of treats, Halloween games organized by Ms Hogan and the Senior Room pupils and all pupils and staff arrived to school in fancy dress.  Have a look below at the photos of the fantastic efforts made with costumes.
 
Extra-Curricular Activities
This month all children designed their very own Christmas cards which have now been ordered. We are hoping to have these back from the printers for those who ordered them in the coming weeks.  All pupils also submitted an entry to the local Credit Union Art competition. The theme this year was “Imagine”.  We were delighted to  receive yet another letter from the Texaco Art competition. Congratulations to Judy O Donnell in 2nd class who made it to the final judging stages of the competition and received a certificate of commendation.