Sixth Class Graduation 2020
http://tiny.cc/Grad2020YearbookBETNS
On Wednesday, 24th June we were so proud to be congratulating our first graduating class of Ballinteer Educate Together. The students of Orlaith’s Sixth Class, along with their families and teachers, celebrated a virtual graduation filled with memories. Many of these students have been with us since the school’s opening in 2012 and so it was an emotional night for everyone. We will miss them all but know that they are more than ready to meet the challenges ahead in secondary school. We know that there are great things ahead of this history-making class!
June Maths Challenge: Make a Sundial
Before clocks, watches and phones, we used a sundial to tell the time. What is a sundial? It’s an ancient instrument that uses shadows cast by the sun to show the time. And today, a sun sundial makes a great feature or structure in your garden. The best bit is, it’s fun and easy to create your own, personalised sundial!
Here’s what you need and how to make it:
- Find a thick, sturdy stick
- 12 rocks, pebbles or stones
- Some paint or a marker pen
- A watch or clock (just to get you set up, then you can use nature’s clock)
- Start by numbering the rocks 1 to 12, you can paint numbers on them, or paint each one a different colour.
- Find a sunny spot that you can return to throughout the day. If you have a garden, this is perfect.
- Place the stick in the ground so that it stands upright.
- Using your existing watch, check where the stick’s shadow is every hour and mark this using your rocks.
- As every hour passes, place a rock in the spot that matches the time so that it’s in the stick’s shadow. After 12 hours, you should be left with a circle of rocks around your stick.
And that’s all there is to it.
Send us a picture of your finished sundial!
May’s Maths Challenge: Make Up A Maths Game!
Using only a pack of cards or a dice, see can you find or make up a fun maths game. Share you maths game instructions or a video of how to play the game with us at website@ballinteeretns.ie. The winner of May’s maths challenge will choose the maths problem-solving challenge for June, our last challenge of the year.
Here are two maths games Órla played at home. Why not give them a try?
Whole School Singing At Home!
While we can’t be together, let’s sing together! Follow the link to join in with our whole school singing assembly at home:
http://tiny.cc/WholeSchoolSingingBETNS
10 familiar songs from our whole school singing assemblies are waiting. We would love to see your videos of you and your family joining in with some of our school songs. If you have a favourite Ballinteer Educate Together song that you would like to hear, please send us your requests : )
Maths Problem of the Month: April
Names and Numbers: What is the value of your name?
The value of Elijah’s name is 45. The value of Liam’s name is 30. What is the value of your name? Watch the video to find out!
http://tiny.cc/AprilMathsProblem
Welcome chicks!
http://tiny.cc/SeniorInfantsChicks Follow the link to see the first video of Senior Infants’ newly hatched chicks!
The chicks were due to hatch on Tuesday, but one hatched on Sunday, while three more hatched on Monday. No more have hatched today, and while fingers are crossed, senior infants have always understood that hatching is very difficult, and even if everything is kept just right, sadly, some of them may not hatch.
When they hatch, the chicks have a little “egg tooth” on the tip of their beak which they use to chip out of the shell. This falls off a couple of days after hatching. See if you can spot an egg tooth!
They have been moved to a “brooder” where they have food, water, warmth, and air, which all living things need to survive.
If there are 11 eggs, and 4 have hatched, how many are left?What would you name these little chicks? We won’t know if they are boys or girls until they grow up!
Daily Art Challenge
We miss you too!
Friday, 29th May: Final Art Challenge. Congratulations to Lilla Barta from Fourth Class who won our final art challenge with her beautiful collection of three pictures. We think you will agree that Lilla is a talented artist and a fitting winner for our last challenge. Thank you so much to all our student artists. We have enjoyed your art so much over the last months. If you have been inspired by the Daily Art Challenge why not try this challenge during the month of June. We would love to see your June artwork. Send to us at website@ballinteeretns.ie
“How Flat Frank Got His Name” 
Thursday, 28th May: Willy Wonka’s Factory – Invent a Sweet! Congratulations to Kitty Thornton from Second Class. Kitty invented a fantastic kitten-making lollipop! We think this would be a very popular new sweet in Willy Wonka’s Factory. Remember that today, Friday is the last in our daily art challenges. Thank you to all those who have taken part since the beginning.
Wednesday, 27th May: Princes and Princesses. Congratulations to Sophie O’Driscoll from 4th Class for her fantastic and very original peg doll prince and princess! We loved that Sophie chose a new medium to explore today’s theme. Well done!
Tuesday, 26th May: Giant Flower Sculpture. Congratulations to Margherita Di Lena from Junior Infants for her fantastic winning lego construction of a giant daisy!
Monday, 25th May: Robots! Theo asked us to design, draw or build a robot and didn’t you do well?! Congratulations to Dorothy in Second Class whose fabulous entry ‘Duplo Riding His Tall Weird Rainbow Car‘ made us smile!
Staff Profile Pictures: Thank you to all our talented students who helped Órla to surprise our teachers, SNAs and staff with new profile pictures for the school website. We were so excited and chuffed to see your beautiful work. Thank you all! Visit http://www.ballinteeretns.ie/teachers/ to see our new staff profile pictures as drawn by our students.
Here are just some of the other fantastic portraits Órla received:
rptnb 
Friday, 22nd May Art Challenge: Movie Characters Congratulations to Theo Quinn from Junior Infants for his fantastic entry Buzz from Toy Story! to infinity and beyond Theo!
Thursday, 21st May Art Challenge: Favourite Toy Congratulations to Lottie O’Mahony from Fifth Class who sent us today’s winning artwork. Her favourite toy? Roller blades! Beautiful work Lottie and well done to all our fantastic entrants.
Wednesday, 20th May Art Challenge: Favourite Planet Congratulations to Aditya Mule from Junior Infants who wowed us with this incredible picture of Planet Earth! Thank you to all our art challenge entrants. Remember, our daily art challenge finishes next week on Friday, 29th May. Since we started the daily art challenge, we have received over 800 pieces of art! We hope that you have had fun making and creating. We have loved sharing your artwork. What has been your favourite theme?
Tuesday, 19th May Art Challenge: Disney Characters Congratulations to Niall Bianchini from First Class. His Yoda picture was chosen as today’s daily art challenge winner! Well done Niall!
Monday, 18th May Art Challenge: Day Out With Grandparents/ Family Congratulations to Karma Khedr from First Class for winning today’s challenge with this beautiful picture of her family’s day out in Bray! We loved that Karma included lots of detail and colour in her art.
Friday, 15th May Art Challenge: Favourite Animals Congratulations to Danika Sanyal from Senior Infants. Look at Danika’s beautiful picture of her four favourite animals! Danika has selected a new theme for Monday’s art challenge: A Day Out with Grandparents/ Family.
Thursday, 14th May Art Challenge: Bumble Bees! Congratulations to Oliver Kirwan from Junior Infants who won today’s Bumble Bee art challenge. Oliver’s picture is really beautiful and comes with a sad true life story!
dav 
Wednesday, 13th May Art Challenge: Fun Land! Congratulations to
Bláthnat and Mia from 5th Class who worked together online to create this fantastic Roblox Fun Land! Really creative work girls – well done!
Tuesday, 12th May Art Challenge: Marvel Characters. Congratulations to Séamus O’Mahony from Senior Infants for his incredible collection of Deadpool art that earned him today’s art challenge title! Séamus will choose tomorrow’s art challenge theme. One of our favourite challenges so far – well done everyone!
dav 
Monday, 11th May Art Challenge: Cars. Congratulations to Matteo Brown from Second Class who was the winner of today’s Cars art challenge with this fantastic gold car! Well done to all our amazing car designers. Check out all the entries below.
Congratulations to Sam Donnelly from First Class who was the winner of today’s Friendly Monsters art challenge. Look at his array of friendly monsters! So impressive. Sam has chosen the theme Cars for Monday’s art challenge. Have a lovely weekend.
Congratulations to all our entries for the Friendly Monsters art challenge. Here are some of our fantastic entries.
http://tiny.cc/FriendlyMonsterDorothy Click on the link to watch a video of Dorothy’s moving monster! 
Friday, 8th May: Friendly Monsters Congratulations to James Taylor from Third Class who was the winner of the Fantasy Football Team Kits art challenge with these fantastic home and away kit designs. The theme for Friday’s art challenge is Friendly Monsters. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Friday, 8th May.
Thursday, 7th May: Fantasy Football Team Kits. Congratulations to Liam Whelan from Fourth Class who was the winner of the In The Jungle art challenge with this beautiful, atmospheric picture of a tiger at the water’s edge. Liam has chosen the theme Fantasy Football Team Kits for Thursday’s art challenge. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Thursday, 7th May.
Wednesday, 6th May: In The Jungle. Congratulations to Rory Lynch from Second Class who was the winner of Tuesday’s Magical Spirits art challenge with this colourful, fantastical picture. Rory has chosen the theme In The Jungle for Wednesday’s art challenge. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Wednesday, 6th May.
Tuesday, 5th May: Magical Spirits. Congratulations to Dorothy Hudson from Second Class who was the winner of Friday’s Star Wars art challenge with this adorable picture of Baby Yoda. Our art challenge will be taking a little break on Monday for the bank holiday. We will be back on Tuesday with Dorothy’s chosen theme, Magical Spirits. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Tuesday, 5th May.
Friday, 1st May: Star Wars Congratulations to Kacper from First Class who was the winner of Thursday’s art challenge Design your own lego figure with this fantastic creation, Dragon Canon! Lego art has been a huge hit this week. Kacper has chosen the theme Star Wars for Friday’s challenge. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Friday, 1st May.
Thursday, 30th April: Design your own Lego figure Congratulations to Sean Lambert from Third Class who was the winner of Wednesday’s art challenge for this fabulous lego Castle. We loved seeing some beautiful 3D art for this challenge. Sean has chosen the theme for Thursday’s art challenge: Design your own Lego figure. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Thursday, 30th April.
Wednesday, 29th April: Castle Congratulations to Arnav Hiremath from Third Class who was the winner of Tuesday’s art challenge for his incredible pencil drawing of a Dragon. Arnav has chosen the theme Castle for Wednesday’s art challenge. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Wednesday, 29th April.
Tuesday, 28th April: Dragons Congratulations to Willow Boyce from Senior Infants who was the winner of Monday’s art challenge for her beautiful My Favourite Flowers picture. Willow’s favourite flowers are dandelions because they are food for the bees. Willow used her origami set and dried flowers to make her picture and only got help with the cutting. Willow has chosen the theme Dragons for Tuesday’s art challenge because she is a huge fan of How to Train Your Dragon! Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Tuesday, 28th April.
Monday, 27th April: My Favourite Flower Congratulations to Lara Quinlan from Fourth Class who was the winner of Friday’s art challenge for her hilarious Dinosaurs picture. Lara has chosen the theme My Favourite Flower for Monday’s art challenge. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Monday, 27th April.
Friday, 24th April: Dinosaurs Congratulations to Conrad from Senior Infants who was the winner of Thursday’s art challenge for his fantastic ferris wheel for Children’s Day. Conrad has chosen the theme Dinosaurs for Friday’s art challenge. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Friday, 24th April.
Thursday, 23rd April: Children’s Day Congratulations to Asya from Junior Infants who was the winner of Wednesday’s Favourite Musical Instrument art challenge for her gorgeous violin painting. Asya would like to choose Children’s Day as the theme for Thursday’s art challenge because it is Children’s Day in Turkey on the 23rd April, a very special holiday! Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Thursday, 23rd April.
Wednesday, 22nd April: Your Favourite Musical Instrument Congratulations to Malika Karim from Second Class who was the winner of the Favourite Holiday Destination art challenge for her beautiful piece on Alexandria Lighthouse in Egypt. Malika has chosen the theme Your Favourite Musical Instrument for Wednesday’s art challenge. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm Wednesday, 22nd April.
dav 
dav 
Tuesday, 21st April: Favourite Holiday Destination Congratulations to Prisha Kumar from Senior Infants who was the winner of yesterday’s art challenge for her beautiful piece on the solar system. Prisha has chosen Favourite Holiday Destination as the theme for today’s art challenge. Please send your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm today, 21st April.
Monday, 20th April: Our Solar System & Insects Our challenge winners, Veeraj (Friday, 3rd) and Theo (Friday, 17th) each chose a theme for Monday’s art challenge so you have two themes to choose from: Our Solar System or Insects. Or, if you are feeling really creative you can enter twice! Please send you entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm on Monday, 20th April.
Congratulations art challenge winners! Thank you to our PTA who continued the art challenge over the spring break. Take a look at all our spring break challenge winners below.
Ariana, 5th Class 
Julia, 6th Class 
Bianca, 5th Class 
Lola, 4th Class 
Rayansh, Junior Infants 
Divisha, 4th Class 
Kitty, 2nd Class 
Theo, Junior Infants 
David, Junior Infants 
Alyssa, 2nd Class
Friday, 3rd April: Sea Life Congratulations to Veeraj Kurpe from Junior Infants who is the winner of the today’s art challenge. Veeraj included lots of detail in his beautiful ocean scene including a fantastic message, Save the Ocean! Our website will be a taking a break over the spring holiday but the PTA will take over the art challenge for anyone that would like to continue it! From Monday, entries can be sent to PTABallinteerETNS@gmail.com. The theme will be Nature Art. The results and daily themes will be posted on https://www.facebook.com/BallinteerETNS.
dav 
Thursday, 2nd April: Egypt’s Tourist Attractions Congratulations to Marium Rashwan from Fourth Class who is the winner of the today’s art challenge for her atmospheric painting of the pyramids at Giza. The theme for today’s challenge is Sea Life. Please submit your entries by 5pm Friday, 3rd April to website@ballinteeretns.ie. Thank you for all your art challenge entries that have kept us smiling throughout the school closure. We hope you are just as impressed as we have been with all the creative talent in our school.
Wednesday, 1st April: Lost in Space Congratulations to Yassin from Fourth Class who is the winner of the Lost in Space art challenge for this striking, colourful space scene. Yassin has chosen Egypt’s Tourist Attractions as the theme for Thursday’s art challenge. Please submit your entries by 5pm Thursday, 2nd April to website@ballinteeretns.ie.
dav 
Tuesday, 31st March: Favourite Book Characters Congratulations to Alison Curtain from Senior Infants who is the winner of the Favourite Book Character art challenge. Alison chose Roald Dahl’s Matilda and we think that Quentin Blake himself would be proud of this picture. Alison has chosen Lost in Space as the theme for Wednesday’s art challenge. Please submit your entries by 5pm Wednesday, 1st April to website@ballinteeretns.ie.
rpt 
Monday, 30th March: Favourite Sports Person Congratulations to Cian Lynch from Fifth Class who is the winner of the Favourite Sports Person art challenge for his fantastic tribute to Usain Bolt. Cian has chosen Favourite Book Characters as the theme for Tuesday’s art challenge. Please submit your entries by 5pm Tuesday, 31st March to website@ballinteeretns.ie.
Friday, 27th March: Bicycles. Congratulations to Rijin from Fourth Class who is the winner of the Bicycles art challenge for her beautiful miniature paper craft bicycle. Rijin has chosen My Favourite Sports Person as the theme for Monday’s art challenge. Please submit your entries by 5pm Monday, 30th March to website@ballinteeretns.ie.
rpt 
Thursday, 26th March: My Future Self. Congratulations to Helena from Senior Infants who is the winner of the My Future Self art challenge for her picture of herself as a Garda. Helena has chosen Bicycles as the theme for Friday’s art challenge because she is really enjoying cycling during our school closure. Please submit your entries by 5pm Friday, 27th March to website@ballinteeretns.ie.
Wednesday, 25th March: Self Portraits. Congratulations to Yunseo from 6th Class who is the winner of the Self Portraits art challenge. Such a fantastically detailed self portrait! Yunseo has chosen My Future Self as the theme for Thursday’s art challenge. Please submit your entries by 5pm Thursday, 26th March to website@ballinteeretns.ie.
rpt 
Tuesday, 24th March: Your Dream House. Congratulations to Claire from 3rd Class who is the winner of the Your Dream House art challenge with her 3D construction. Claire has chosen the theme Self Portraits for Wednesday’s art challenge. Please submit your entries by 5pm Wednesday, 25th March to website@ballinteeretns.ie.
Monday, 23rd March: Summer is Coming. Congratulations to Liam Kirwan from 2nd Class who is the winner of the Summer is Coming art challenge with his piece ‘Summer Festivals Around Europe’. Liam has chosen the theme Your Dream House for Tuesday’s art challenge. Please submit your entries by 5pm Tuesday, 24th March to website@ballinteeretns.ie.
Friday, 20th March Theme: Superheroes. Congratulations to Constance Sun, from 2nd Class who is the winner of the Superheroes art challenge. Constance has chosen Summer is Coming as her theme for Monday’s art challenge. Please email entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie by 5pm on Monday, 23rd March.
Thursday, 19th March Theme: Mother’s Day. Congratulations to Ivy Harle, from Junior Infants who is the winner of the Mother’s Day art challenge. Ivy has chosen Superheroes as her theme for today’s art challenge, Friday 20th March. Please email entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie by 5pm.
Thank you for all your Mother’s Day themed art pictures! We received a huge number of entries and we are still trying to upload them all here. The winner of today’s challenge will be announced tomorrow, along with the new art challenge theme. Take a look below and see whose pictures you can spot!
Wednesday, 18th March Theme: Leprechauns. Eyad Amr from 5th class was the winner of the Leprechaun challenge for his beautiful picture of a leprechaun with his furry leprechaun friend! Eyad has chosen Mother’s Day as the theme for our art challenge, Thursday 19th March. Please email your entries to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm.
Thank you for all your fantastic leprechaun pictures! We were overwhelmed by the number of entries – we are still working on uploading them all here for you to see. Please keep an eye out here for your picture. The winner of today’s challenge will be announced here tomorrow along with Thursday’s art challenge theme!
Learning at Home
4th Class Ice Bucket Challenge
http://tiny.cc/4thClassIceBucketChalleng
Check out our 4th Class having some fun with the Ice Bucket Challenge! A great way to enjoy the sunny weather.
Message on Covid19
One of our students in Junior Infants put together a fantastic information video all about keeping safe and well! What amazing work.
Smile by Noah Cooper
We are very proud of 5th Class student Noah Cooper. He entered the RTÉjr We Love Books short story writing competition, and it was just announced today that his story was highly commended, and he placed in the top five!
Noah will be doing a phone interview next week which will be on the Homeschool Hub. When the RTÉ television studio reopens Noah will also be invited in to record his story.
You can read Noah’s story here, but be warned, it’s pretty scary!
http://tiny.cc/SmilebyNoahCooper
Tricky letters work for this Senior Infant! 
Number Blocks! 
Blinding Lights. Fun and dance – what a fantastic way to learn! Follow the links to check out these fabulous dancers. http://tiny.cc/BlindingLights and http://tiny.cc/BlindingLights2
We know we have fantastic dancers and choreographers in our school. Send us your videos and start an on online flashmob!
School might be closed for two weeks but that hasn’t stopped our wonderful students from learning! We love to hear about the activities and projects you are getting up to at home. Please email photos and updates to website@ballinteeretns.ie. In keeping with our policies we will not identify children by name.
Third Class were also learning about the rainforest. Follow the link below to see the video one of our students created.
http://tiny.cc/RainforestAppealVideo
Reading at home for this Senior Infants student
Enjoying yoga at home. You can find lots of mindfulness and yoga exercises at https://family.gonoodle.com/channels/flow and https://www.cosmickids.com/. You might recognise some of the activities from school. 
Playing draughts
Student from Senior Infants working on note connection in video chat with her grandad 
And her older brother working on plant research with grandma over video
Art Challenge: We will be setting an art challenge every day during the school’s closure. Children can draw a picture or create an art project and send a photograph to website@ballinteeretns.ie. The winning entry each day will get to pick the theme of the next day’s art challenge!
Today’s art challenge theme is: Leprechauns
Please send your art challenge photographs to website@ballinteeretns.ie before 5pm. The winning entry will be posted on the website.
Draw up the alphabet in chalk on the pavement. Child throws a pebble. Someone calls out a word for whatever letter the pebble lands on. The child has to hop to the letters that spell out the word.
While out and about these Ballinteer brothers are picking things they will look up & learn about over the coming week- Waterfalls, Mountains, Frogs & frogspawn, Weather etc. They are keeping social distance by going to remote places. Fairy Castle, Dublin Mountains & Powerscourt Waterfall.
Baking at home! 
Why not set up your own library corner at home? If you have a library card then you can also access your library’s ebooks and audio books through BorrowBox. Log in at www.librariesireland.ie. The pin is the last four digits of your library card number. Not a library member? You can now sign up online and start using BorrowBox straight away. Sign up here: https:/t.co/ulfNYdRM4P?amp=1
Have you visited Twinkl.ie? This is an excellent learning resource that covers all topics and subject areas in the primary school curriculum. Visit www.twinkl.ie/offer and enter code IRLTWINKLHELPS for free access.
Time to dust off our mummy and daddy maths skills and set a quiz! No maths resources at home? Not to worry – pasta shapes, coins, crayons – all pressed in to action to help our younger mathematicians.
March Problem of the Month
Department announcements relating to Coronavirus
It was announced today that all schools are to close today, Thursday 12th March at 6pm until 29th March. Children should be collected from school at the normal time today. More information will be sent to parents in the coming hours and days about our plans to support at-home learning. Please do not hesitate to contact Órla directly at principal@ballinteeretns.ie if you have any questions or concerns.
Please see below links to the most up-to-date information for schools:
First Term in Second Class
It has been a busy first term settling in to our new school for 2nd Class. We have got used to our new surroundings, learned about our locality and taken a trip to the library for a cartoon workshop with the author Úna Woods. We’ve also been doing lots of report writing about different mammals and we’ve taken time to draw many of them too. Time was also spent investigating the many different things that make up soil along with looking at different samples of soils to spot the different layers. On a nature walk to the River Slang we stopped to enjoy the snow. We are looking forward to the Winter Holidays and we’re excited for 2023!
Exploring the Polar Regions in Aistear
Junior Infants are loving the exploration of both the North and the South Pole at the moment!
Junior Infant Drama Sessions with Paula
The children are really enjoying their drama sessions with Paula, the drama teacher. She read them the story “We’re All Wonders” by R.J. Palacio last week and today they imagined what it might be like to blast off into space! Paula had speakers and star light effects to make it a magical experience. The children were zooming around the classroom, like rockets and shooting stars and then floating like weightless astronauts on the moon. Everybody also took a turn to share something about themselves that makes them unique, just like the boy in the storybook. We are looking forward to more fun filled sessions with Paula over the next few weeks.
