We have had an extremely busy and festive month here in Killurney, preparing for Christmas. On the 12th of December we held an art exhibition where we showcased all of our art work from the month. We made Christmas baubles, handprint paintings, fairy door decorations, photo snow globes, carol singers, gingerbread house paintings and most importantly our cribs which we made at home with our parents as a STEM challenge. Every pupil in the school also designed a school crest. Mrs Carroll put all of our ideas together and they are going to be used by a local printing company to come up with a new official school crest. All of our ideas and original designs were displayed on the evening. There were plenty of festive treats like mulled punch, chocolate and O’Donnells crisps for our parents on the evening. After our art exhibition, we performed a short carol service. We sang Rocking around the Christmas Tree, Jingle Bell Rock, The Little Drummer Boy, Away in a Manger, We`re walking in the air, Rudolf, Jingle Bells and We wish you a Merry Christmas. We spent a lot of time practicing these in the run up to the evening.  We also performed a surprise performance for Miss Hogan because she was getting married. At the end of our carol singing, we all put on sunglasses, held up red paper hearts and sang Last Christmas I gave you my heart and a Bruno Mars song with choreography. We also gave her flowers and a card from the whole school.
On the 19th we had a surprise visit from Santa where we got a selection box each.
On 21st December, the whole school left Killurney at 7:40am to attend the Panto in Limerick. This year`s show was Sleeping Beauty. It was very funny and we all really enjoyed it.
5th and 6th class Confirmation masses ended last Sunday after the third week.
Our school Christmas hamper raffle took place last week. We raised €513.
 
In classroom news, both the Senior and the Junior room are doing the theme of An Nollag in Irish this month. The senior room are doing a Japan project and are making kimono art and haiku poetry art which will be hung up in the school. We also did explanation writing on why Christians celebrate Christmas along with traditions about Christmas. The Junior room learned all about Tom Creane and his South Pole Expedition this month. The read the story “Tom Creane`s Rabbit” and write diary entries from Tom on board the Terra Nova. They also wrote Christmas stories in Narrative writing.
We are looking forward to our Christmas holidays and are excited to find out what 2024 holds for us. 

By Robyn Lindy and Lucy Meagher 

​Over the past two months we have done a wide range of activities like our cross country race in Clonmel. Despite it being very cold and rainy we did very well with multiple people winning medals and some even coming in first place.
Secondly, we had our football blitz for First, Second and Third class which they really enjoyed. They won two matches and lost one.
Later in the month we finished our tag rugby lessons with Joe which we started doing at the start of the year.
The fifth and the sixth class worked very hard on a debate hosted by the charity concern. We had to convince one of the people working for the charity that all children in Ireland do not have access to a playground locally and although we put a lot of effort into it we lost against the other school.
A lot of people also  brought in shoe boxes for the Team Hope shoe box appeal where you fill a shoebox with toys clothes sweets and hygiene products and Team Hope send it out to children all over the world who need it.
The senior room have been doing a lot of work with S.T.E.M like making wind mills and marble runs out of recyclable materials, our most recent project being building water proof houses.
For science week the junior room did lots of experiments, one being trying to make a DIY thermo for Mrs Carroll`s hot chocolate and another being making musical instruments that you can either strike, pluck, shake or blow into. They also carried out a “Dancing Raisin” experiment and a “Soap and Pepper” experiment to demonstrate the importance of washing your hands properly.
The junior room made menus and did role play of “Sa Bhialann” in Aistear as they explored the theme of “Bia” in  Irish lesson while the senior room are going over verbs and Irish nouns.
The senior room are also doing projects on Japan. The topics are: Culture, animals, food, houses and sports.
On the day of the Hallowe`en break we all played games that the sixth class set up: One where you use a ruler to cut bits off of a pile of flour with a jelly on top and if the jelly falls then you have to stick your head into the flour. We had  two piñatas and also played Snap Apple. If you could manage to catch the apple in your mouth, you got sweets. Everyone also dressed up for Hallowe`en in tonnes of fun costumes for the day.
In late November, our tag rugby couch returned for a visit with the URC rugby trophy which Munster won last season. We had great fun taking photos with the huge cup. Joe also gifted us a big bag of rugby balls that we will be able to use for P.E.
All in all, it has been a very eventful two months and we have had lots of fun.
              By Robyn Lindy