We welcomed our new class teacher, Mr Plunkett, to our school this year and we got started on a very active note - by taking the school exercise challenge with Joe Wicks (also known as the body coach!)  We learned about eating healthy and exercising and felt better in our bodies and minds.

On the 31st August 2017 Ballintubber NS proudly welcomed 10 new pupils to Junior Infants. They settled in quickly with their friends in Senior Infants and we had a wonderful day!

 Somebody else wanted to start school with us - we have a very special visitor that appeared in our class one morning - a real hedgehog!!! Ms Kerrigan was brave enough to pick it up and show it to us all - live learning at its best!

We received certificates from Joanne for our participation in the Bricks Club each Friday.  We loved taking part, thank you Joanne!

Well what an amazing week we had for Wellness and Positivity Week! Just look at Lilly and Leah meditating during mindfulness and they are so happy they are holding hands! First of all a huge thank you to Ms Serantes for coming up with the idea and organising the whole thing - the only problem is we will want to do it every year!!! It gave a great focus coming towards the end of the year and we feel healthier in our minds and bodies because of it. Here is a snapshot of what we got up to. Thank you to all teachers, SNAs and adults who worked so hard to help us learn so much and have fun too! While you are reading about what we got up to have a browse through a selection of photos from the week.

Monday

Mrs Kennedy started Wellness and Positivity Week with a whole school assembly and we talked out what we would be learning about for the week. We got our homework - we had to write down 3 things we are thankful for and our daily random act of kindness was to make a card for a teacher/helper/parent or anyone we chose to say thank you to.

We had a visit from Cora Staunton and Deiredre Donnelly and they chatted to us about the importance of exercise and sport and Cora answered lots of questions. She taught us about the importance of making friends through sport, how to win and lose and teamwork. We then did fun activities which we really enjoyed. They are wonderful role models and we appreciate their time and expertise.

Tuesday

During assembly we got our homework - write 3 things we like about ourselves and our random act of kindness was to give people a silent wave and a smile that day. We had Michael McHale for GAA skills as usual and 3rd and 4th had Mr Fireman in to talk to them about fire safety. 5th and 6th class had an excellent talk from Niall Dunne from Mayo Mental Health Association. We were organised into teams for the afternoon with a mixture from each class and we did a range of sporting activities on the yard and in the centre.

Wednesday

In assembly we learned about belly breathing and how and when to use it. Our random act of kindness was to send a positive note to a classmate. Stephanie Lally came in and taught us how to be mindful in our daily lives and we did a breathing meditation. We were so relaxed afterwards! Thank you so much to Stephanie for sharing her time and knowledge with us.

Thursday

We braved the odd shower and walked to the Abbey - it was great to be out in the fresh air. We had a tour and talk from Fr Fahey, Con and Muriel who made the history of the Abbey come alive for us. What a special place we live in and we are proud to be steeped in rich historical traditions in such a wonderful community. As always thank you to Fr Fahey and his team for all the fantastic work they do and the effort they make for us and our future. We had our lunch at the Abbey and the Senior classes had a quiz while the Junior rooms did some colouring before walking back to school. A thoroughly enjoyable and educational day.

Friday

We finished our Wellness and Positivity Week with the SNA takeover! The SNAs were in charge of lesson today and they did a brilliant job. The workshops were:

Gardening with Sinead

Essential Oils with Bianka

Art with Nomee

Yoga with Lisa

We are so lucky that such talented people work in our school. As you can see from the photos we had a wonderful time and we learned so much. Thank you to our SNAs for the time and effort they put into preparing and delivering their workshops.

We finished off by listening to the story Have you Filled a Bucket and we received our complements from the complement box Ms Serantes had left in the hallway at the start of the week. We feel so much better after our Wellness and Positivity Week and we will continue to out into practice all that we learned!

Here are a few photos of some of the things we've been getting up to!

We received tshirts for taking part in the Sky Sports for Living partnership programme.  Thanks to our sports mentor Cora Staunton for 2 great days - you were inspirational!

We have been reading Owl Babies in the Infant classroom and using it as our oral language focus for the past couple of weeks. We loved listening to the story and talking and responding to it and we even made owl masks! We used this to dramatise the story in groups.

The preschool children who are starting school in September, Junior and Senior infants and First and Second class had a visit from local author Rosie Lowe.  Rosie read from her book The Labradorable Tails and told us about the adventures of her dog Chuck. We all got to draw a pawprint and then Rosie picked one from a box to win a copy of her book - well done Noah! Thank you so much to Rosie for taking the time to come see us and keep us all enthralled with the adventures of Chuck! We are looking forward to her next book!

We are so proud of the girls who reached the semi finals and the boys who made it to the final in McHale Park in the Cumann na mBunscol competition. The boys fought back hard in the second half but it was not to be as they narrowly missed out by a point due to a last minute goal by the very worthy winners Aughamore. The PTA kindly had a homecoming for the boys back at the school where we celebrated with chips and sausages for the team and a drink, crisps and treats for everyone!  Well done to all involved and a very special thank you to Mr Byrne for all his hard work and dedication training the team.  Also thank you to Fr Fahey for awarding the medals to the boys.

We have been so lucky and really enjoying the fine weather. We love when we can all go up to the grass and play together. Thank God for the sunshine and long may it last!

On Thursday 18th our school had the privilege of taking a walk down to the Celtic Furrow and spending the day doing a range of activities. Junior and Senior Infants along with First and Second classes walked down in the morning and Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth classes spent the afternoon there. What a wonderful time we had!  Have a look at the photos to see what we got up to.  We are so lucky to live in an area that proudly preserves traditions and history with such care and we were delighted to be a part of it.  Thank you so much to Fr Fahy and all the helpers who made the day so special and out such hard work into it for us.

The Sunflowers workers took their activities outside this week to make the most of the sun! Take a look at all they got up to!

Senior Infants have been working hard with Ms Serantes on their maths learning about the story of 10 and different ways to make 10!

For Mayo Day we thought about what being from Mayo meant to us.  We wrote acrostic poems about Mayo.

We have been learning about belonging to a family.  We interviewed our grandparents and parents.  We drew family portraits with chalks and pastels.  We filled in details about our families in a family tree.

Some of the children in our school will be taking part in the West of Ireland mini mini run on Sunday 30th May.  We wish them all the best, good luck and have an enjoyable day to all taking part!

Check out our Spring and Easter window displays that our SNA Nomee has been working hard with the children on.  We love the way it brings brightness and colour to our school!

Mayo Day is Saturday 29th April so we all wore our Mayo colours to school on Friday to celebrate all things green and red!  We watched the video 'Mayo-Our Day' on mayo.ie and talked about why we are proud to live in Mayo and what makes it different from other counties.  Of course we had to sing our county anthem 'The Green and Red of Mayo!'  Happy Mayo Day to all our friends and family near and far.

For the summer term each week we learn GAA skills with Michael McHale.  We thoroughly enjoy these lessons to develop our football and team skills!

To celebrate Easter in the Infants we made chocolate Easter baskets.  First of all we melted chocolate, then we added shreddies and mixed them in, we put the mix into bun cases and when they had set we added a chick and egg each!  We took turns and we had so much fun!  Happy Easter!

On Friday the PTA organised a handwashing workshop for the school. Each class had the opportunity to listen to Mags and Martina explain why it so important to wash our hands correctly and how to do so.  We checked our hands for germs, washed them and checked again.  We could not believe the results! Thanks for Mags and Margaret and to the PTA for organising this very interesting event.

We have been enjoying Yoga as part of our PE lessons.  This exercise is training our body and mind to become stronger and fitter - check out some of our moves!

5th and 6th have been working on model making over the past few weeks.  We have learned a lot of new skills and really enjoyed being creative!

Ms Serantes has been working very hard with Junior Infants on their maths skills to number 10.....and they've been working even harder!  Look at Oscar's face....we're not sure if he's singing a song or just thoroughly enjoying himself!!!

Bhíomar go leir ag caitheamh glas, bán agus oráiste do Lá Fhéile Pádraig. Bhí ceolchoirm iontach againn.  Bhí páistí ag seinm ceoil, ag canadh agus ag rince. Bhí na páistí go leir ar fheabhas ar fad!

Every Thursday we are lucky to have Ms Gibbons team teach with Mrs Kennedy to teach us skills to become good readers.  We know how to predict, make connections, visualise and ask questions.

Our Spring flowers are in bloom.  We planted the bulbs in Autumn.  Have a look at our school garden page too!

Junior Infants have been working hard on number and now we have started to learn how to add two numbers together.

We discovered that when an egg is left in water for 24 hours it stays the same but when an egg is placed in vinegar the shell becomes extremely fragile and breaks easily!

To celebrate Valentine's Day we moulded clay into ladybirds and painted them  to bring home as a surprise along with a card to our parents.

We wrote this verse on our cards:

This tiny little ladybird

Though small as it may be

Is filled with loving wishes

Just for you from me!

We made some LOVEly animals for Valentine's Day!  We coloured in the hearts in the sheet, carefully cut them out and stapled them together to make the animals.

We wrote some Valentine poems.  We learnt how to rhyme words.  We wrote our first draft in our copies, we edited them and wrote our second draft very carefully on to a sheet which we decorated.

We brought in used containers to set up a shop when we were learning about money.  Rather than throw them in the recycling bin we made 3D models of shops from the used containers in Art class.

We were learning about Salvadore Dali.  He was a surrealist painter from Spain.  We loved his "melted clocks".  Our favourite Dali painting was "The Persistence of Money".

We used the surfaces (tablets) to help us with our maths skills - counting, ordering and sorting.

We researched and presented projects.  First class studied animals and second class studied countries.  We loved using the surfaces to find out information.

Every Monday we practise mindfulness.  We use Zen Den to train our minds into calm and stillness and this makes us better learners and better friends to each other.

Look at all the fantastic work we have completed in Bricks Club - we are very creative and I'm sure there are some budding engineers in the group!

While Junior Infants are busy learning their sounds, Senior Infants are very proud of their reading skills.  We love showing how well we can read and it is so exciting when we start a new reader!

Our Religious Education programme has changed to Grow in Love in the infants.  This is our second year of it and we really enjoy the stories, songs and book activities.  Each Thursday night we bring home our book to complete homework with our parents.

We enjoyed carving the pumpkin and in particular scooping his 'brains' out!

We are busying settling in to life in Junior and Senior Infants!  Here are some of the activities we enjoy every morning before we settle down to formal learning.