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The 1916 Rising with 6th Class
Muireann’s Sixth Class have been learning all about the 1916 Rising this month. We researched projects and presented them to the class for our homework. We have been reading the Gerard Whelan novel “The Guns of Easter” which is a historical fiction novel set in Dublin 1916. We recreated a large map of Dublin with the key locations of the Rising. To top it all off, we visited the Pearse museum in St. Enda’s Park !
Here are our constructed sites of the Rising !
The Helga 
Jameson Distillery 
The Four Courts 
Jacob’s Factory 
St. Stephens Green (with trenches!) 
Bolands Mill 
The GPO and Padraig Pearse reading the Proclamation
Here we are at the Pearse Museum in St. Enda’s Park.
Book Dress Up Day
by Maia, Lilla, Saoirse, Andrej
“On Book Dress Up Day, we chose the theme “Lord of the Rings” for the class. We enjoyed the day especially because everyone had great costumes. We also liked it because we watched the first Lord of the Rings movie to match our theme and we ate sweets!”
Can you spot a group of hobbits, some elves, Legolas, Gandalf, Smaug, Aragorn and a Nazgul ?
The lunar phases – Muireann’s 6th Class
by Alan, Hamza, Andy, Chloe L, Amé
Subject : Geography, Science and Art
Topic : The Moon
“These are the Oreo Lunar Phases Projects that we have created to represent the phases of the moon. We scraped the filling out to make the shape of the lunar phases. We painted a galaxy background and then stuck the oreos in order. We created the Earth by cutting green pieces of card into small countries then stuck them on a piece of paper”
Lilla and Saoirse also wrote excellent poems about the phases of the moon !
Fraction Wars in 6th Class
by Nour, Liam, Yassin and Marium R
Subject: Maths
Topic : Fractions
“We did a Maths game that had to do with fractions. You play by putting a lollipop stick on the table and you deal out a pack of cards. You put the cards in place of the denominator and numerator. The player with the larger fraction wins the round and all 4 cards”
6th Class Crocus Project
Sixth Class are taking part in the Crocus Project run by HETI (Holocaust Education Trust Ireland). We were sent crocus bulbs, which were planted this week (October 19th). They should bloom in early spring, to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day. We discussed interesting shapes we could plant the bulbs in to ensure a beautiful bloom! We planted some of our bulbs into the Star of David, which is the symbol of Judaism. We will post about this again when the plants bloom. Stay tuned !
For more information click here : https://hetireland.org/programmes/crocus-project/
Sixth Class – Ancient buildings and ruins
Sixth class have been learning about ancient buildings and ruins in Ireland. We read about the most famous ruins, such as Glendalough and Trim Castle and we recreated them using Lego. We then went for a walk to see an unusual ruin in our locality! This ruin is called ‘The Bottle Tower’ or ‘Hall’s Barn’. It was built in the 1740s during a year of intense famine in the country. It is a miniature replica of The Wonderful Barn in Leixlip.
5th Class in the outdoor classroom
Fifth Class have been so delighted to use our outdoor classroom over the past few weeks. Here we are using it as our debating teams prepare for their formal debates!
Non-stop Learning in First Class
Way back in November we were treated to a Zoom call with author and illustrator Alan Nolan. We had so much fun, Alan was so funny and he had us rolling about with laughter! He also taught us how to draw and answered all our questions, it was amazing.
To say thank you we all wrote Alan a letter, we wonder how long it took him to read them all!
Winter Crafts… Printing gift wrap and weaving with wool on cardboard looms… First Class also prepared and produced a performance of Nick Butterworth’s One Snowy Night which was shared with the rest of the school for a virtual winter show!
During Engineers Week we learnt all about the Design Process. We put this design process into practice ourselves by planning, making, testing and improving on a variety of things that could help the Gingerbread Man cross the river safely so that he would not need to rely on the sly fox or be worried about becoming soggy in the water! We designed and made, zip-lines, boats and bridges…
First class are also truly amazing artists… this year we have learnt about some famous artists, Kandinsky and Van Gogh. Inspired by these artists we created concentric heart cards for someone we love and still life paintings of beautiful Spring flowers.
First class love getting outdoors… we had lots of fun doing some active scavenger hunts before the Spring break. As scientists we have been growing plants, discovering how plants take up water and need sunlight, water and air to grow and live. We celebrated Earth day in style with lots of great books like “Here We Are” by Oliver Jeffers and “Earth Yay!”. We also lernt the song “Cover Me in Sunshine” by Pink and created the most brilliant group dances during P.E. We created beautiful Earth Day posters and we made some delicate wildflower sun-catchers for our window. We also learnt all about the life-cycle of a ladybird after Claire found some strange little bumps on her tree and discovered they were ladybird pupa!
More recently we have zoomed out of planet Earth and have begun to explore the whole solar system. We have learnt about Apollo 11 and the moon landings. We have seen how much has changed and developed in space travel and science since 1969. We really enjoyed reading Chris Hadfield’s book “The Darkest Dark” and then watching him brush his teeth and make a sandwich in outer space on the international space station. Watch this space ;-), I think we have lots of budding astronauts here in First Class!
Photography Nature Walk
In Fifth Class, we went for a Scavenger Hunt Nature Walk. We took photos of different things we found along the way, and then we came back to the classroom to share our nature photography. Have a look at some of the beautiful, well framed shots we took!
Daffodil Day March 26th
The Student Council arranged some fundraising activities for Daffodil Day March 2021, and we were so thrilled and delighted to see so many people getting involved. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone so much for their generous donations!
The Student Council sent this letter earlier this week.
“Dear parents of BETNS,
As this Friday, the 26th of March is Daffodil Day, we will be fundraising for the Irish Cancer Society. Our target goal is €800, which is an average of about €2 per person, but you can donate as little or as much as you like.
We will collect online and with pots that we will leave in the classrooms on Friday. The students are encouraged to wear yellow or something Daffodil related on Friday. Throughout the week, there will be Daffodil Art and the children can bring in Daffodils to decorate their classroom if they want.
Sincerely,
The Student Council “
We will update this post with new photos and the amount we raised when it is all counted.
Ballinteer Educate Together Masterpiece Challenge
We thought we would invite our school community to get involved in a fun challenge. Earlier in the year the Getty Museum challenged people to recreate famous pieces of art using everyday household objects (and people or pets). We thought we would try our own Ballinteer ETNS version of this challenge.
So how will it work for our school’s Masterpiece Challenge?
- First choose a famous piece of art you would like to recreate. Inspiration could come from a famous painting, a sculpture, stone work, pottery… Take a look on some art gallery websites online and see what you can find!
- Look around your house and find household objects to use for your recreation. You can have people and pets in your recreation also.
- When you have created your masterpiece, send a photo of it, along with a picture of the original art, to info@ballinteeretns.ie.
- All masterpieces will then be hung here in our virtual gallery on our school website!
Have fun! We look forward to seeing your imaginative works of art!
Check out our wonderful masterpieces below!
The Writing Workshop
Since October, the children in Graham and Muireann’s fifth class have been engaging in the Writing Workshop once or twice a week. This is a time where the children can write about any topics of interest to them, and can practice their creative writing (narrative, poetry, diary entries) at their own speed. There are Five Stages of the Writing Workshop.
Prewriting is when you are thinking about and planning your piece of writing.
Drafting is the first time you write it.
Editing is when you read over it again and correct your mistakes.
Revision is when the teacher corrects it for you, and finally, when all that is done, the children move on to publish their final work into a book!
First Class – A very busy term 1!
Claire’s First Class have been very busy bees since returning to school in September… Take a look at some of what we have been up to!..
Mathematicians at work. We love working and playing together during our maths stations.
Re-telling the story ‘Don’t Worry Little Crab’ by Chris Haughton with our own handmade crab puppets. Art, Drama, S.P.H.E and literacy all in one!
A history lesson on Helen Keller tied in nicely with our science lessons on the senses and we wrote our names in braille, using the sense of touch to read.
Learning about school long ago was fascinating, we are glad we didn’t have to go to school long ago, school today is alot more fun and friendly! We certainly had fun identifying what these artefacts were used for with our groups.
Artists at work, creating collages like Matisse.
We loved learning about all our native Irish trees and the changes that occur in Autumn. We love learning outside and had lots of fun making habitats for woodland creatures and collecting sticks, stones, leaves and conkers to make nature mandalas.
Book week was so much fun! We wrote book recommendations, designed covers for our favourite books, made bookmarks using origami and went on a Where’s Wally search but most of all we loved curling up with a good book for Drop Everything And Read…
Salt Dough Maps of Ireland!
Muireann and Graham’s fifth class were learning all about the counties, rivers and lakes of Ireland! We integrated our Geography work into our Art and we created topographic maps of Ireland using salt dough. We moulded the mountain ranges, and painted them using the colours of a physical map : Green for low lands, yellow for higher land, brown for the tops of mountain ranges. We then added in a few rivers and lakes. We included the Shannon, Lough Neagh and the Three Sisters (The Barrow, The Nore and The Suir!)
Art, Nature and Trees with 5th Class
In Fifth Class we were looking at native and non native trees in our school environment. We went on tree identification walks and we used leaves, twigs, grass to make some nature art!
6th Class Works of Art
6th Class have created some fabulous pieces of art this term. Have a look at some examples of our talent below!
6th Class Walk to Airfield
As part of our local history and geography study this term, 6th Class decided to take a trip to Airfield Estate. We were very lucky with the weather and walked there and back. Along the way, we noted landmarks present in our local environment, with a view to sketching these landmarks on to a map of the area later on. When we reached Airfield, we had the chance to see the farm animals and to learn about the history of Airfield Estate itself. Any trip to Airfield would not be complete without a visit to the playground and so before we headed back to school, we enjoyed a game of ‘Build Up’ in the playground, which was lots of fun! We are so lucky to have this fantastic educational resource in our locality!
Climate Talk
Last week students from Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School came in to talk to 5th and 6th Classes about climate change. The students are all part of the Students’ Climate Action Network (SCAN) and came in to our school, along with their teacher and Climate Ambassador Sallie, to spread the word about how students can influence climate action in this country. It was an extremely interesting and eye-opening talk and our 5th and 6th class pupils made their own pledges to address climate change and went home feeling inspired and motivated to implement these changes. Thank you so much to the students from Stepaside ETSS for this wonderful opportunity to discuss and learn about such a relevant and important issue. You can check out all about SCAN at www.schoolsclimateaction.ie
Write-A-Book Project
4th, 5th and 6th Classes have created their own books, as part of the Write-A-Book Project, organised by Blackrock Education Centre. This annual event celebrates the talented writers in our school and gives the children the opportunity to experience the writing of children in other primary schools in Dublin. It is a fantastically inspiring event and all children have thoroughly enjoyed the process and have learned a great deal along the way!
Peace Proms 2020
On Sunday the 2nd of February the Ballinteer ETNS Senior Choir, consisting of members from 5th and 6th Classes, took part in the CBOI Peace Proms concert in the RDS, Dublin. This was a fantastic experience for the children, as they had the opportunity to sing a brilliant repertoire of songs together with over 2,500 other children from all over Ireland. The huge choir of schoolchildren was accompanied by the amazingly talented Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland, under the baton of renowned choral conductor Greg Beardsell. The children sang a varied programme of songs, including A Million Dreams, from The Greatest Showman, Brothers in Arms and a powerful medley of Queen songs. It was a night to remember. Read more about the Peace Proms and the wonderful work of the CBOI at the following link https://peaceproms.com/
Buddy Reading
Orlaith’s 6th Class and Katy’s 2nd Class have been sharing their love of books and reading by coming together regularly to do buddy reading. This has been a fantastic opportunity for both classes to develop literacy, social and leadership skills and the children have greatly enjoyed the experience. It is anticipated that these sessions will progress further and lead on to some collaborative creative writing experiences before the end of the school year!
Human Rights in 6th Class
We have been learning all about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also about the UN Charter of Children’s Rights. We decided to create our own Human Rights quilt to represent them. Doesn’t it look great?
Halloween
We had lots of fun carving the pumpkin, making pictures and baking “báirín breac”.
Autumn walks
On a beautiful Autumn day, we set of in search of “Leafman”.
“A leafman has got to go where the wind blows. “
Skipathon in 1st class
Self Portraits
Developing the skill of observation and drawing.
“Every child is an artist”
Picasso
Space Theme
Lego models of the ISS 
Walking to the Planetarium at The Mill Theatre 
The Planetarium 
5,4,3,2,1 Blastoff!!! 
Making rockets and International Space Stations 
The newly renovated International Space station.
“Oh the places you will go!”
Dr Seuss
1st Class Term 1 Maths Activities
In term 1 we explored 2D shape, number patterns, ordinal number and fractions. We learned about these new concepts and developed our Maths skills in lots of fun ways.
Ordinal Number 
Human Winter Trees
Sixth Class have been embracing the cold winter days and have been using their creativity and imaginations in many different areas of school life. In P.E., they tried a Human Winter Tree relay race. The object of the race was to decorate their team’s winter tree with as much P.E. equipment as possible, in the fastest time. There were also points awarded for creativity and collaboration! It was good fun and helped to keep us warm!
Our School Timeline
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Our new home coming to life
James, teacher Laura’s dad came in to help us to bring our new lobby space to life. Our PTA funded James’ work to fill every corner with beautiful planting. Children in each class have taken on the responsibility of watering and caring for the plants. Thank you James and the PTA!
Playworks Returns
Playworks is back! Playworks aims to ensure that every child has the opportunity to be active and engaged during their yard breaks. Everyday our volunteers from 4th and 5th Class set up and run our Playworks stations in the yard. Yard equipment including skipping ropes, netball games, tennis rackets and balls and stomper pots are available in the Playworks section and the racing and skipping games stations are always very popular.
In the coming weeks, we will look to add new stations and equipment to the Playworks yard programme. Thank you to Tamasine and our tireless Playworks volunteers who give of their time every day to make our yard so much fun!
After-School Activities Term 1
Our first term of After-School Activities is coming to an end. We hope that the children have enjoyed participating in all the activities; soccer, chess, yoga, ukelele, art, science, book club, multi-sport, mindful drawing and colouring, lego club, tennis and drama. Please see below the dates of the last session for each group.
Our coming term of After-School Activities will commence at the end of January. Information about activities and sign up will follow after the winter break.
Junior Einsteins Science will take place every Friday in school for a 12-week term commencing on 10th January. Places for Junior Einsteins Science in Term 2 will be filled on a first come first served basis through the company’s own sign up link. Please look out for an email from Órla coming soon with the sign up details.
Drama: Monday, 18th November
Art: Tuesday, 19th November
Lego: Tuesday, 19th November
Multi-sport: Tuesday, 19th November
Movie Book Club: Tuesday, 19th November
Ukelele: Tuesday, 26th November
Tennis: Wednesday, 27th November
Soccer (3rd/ 4th): Wednesday, 4th December
Chess: Wednesday, 4th December
Science with Ann: Thursday, 21st November
Drawing and mindful colouring: Thursday, 28th November (no class on 21st November)
Yoga: Thursday, 21st November
Soccer (5th/ 6th): Thursday, 21st November
Junior Einsteins: Friday, 13th December
ESB Scribble Bots for Science Week
Clodagh and Nessa’s dad organised for a very special visit to 2nd and 3rd classes from the ESB Scribble Bots! We had a great time learning about how to make our own scribble bots using a motor and we even got to take our bots home with us. Thank you to Joey and Niamh and all the team from ESB for visiting us during Science Week. We can’t wait to learn more about electric circuits.
Science Week 2019
Órla had some very happy visitors from First Class sharing their preparations for Science Week in November. First Class have taken on the theme of Space this year. Look at this incredible space helmet that one of our students made at home!
Oíche Shamhna Shona Daoibh!
Happy Hallowe’en to all. We saw out Book Week with our ever-popular Dress-up day on Friday, 25th October. Lots of our favourite book characters visited us (with a few ghosts and goblins joining in the fun too!).
Costume Drop ‘n Swap
Our school lobby is festooned with costumes looking for new homes!
This year, we are inviting parents to drop off any pre-loved costumes in the school lobby outside the book fair. There you are welcome to choose some costumes to take home with you! Donations are welcome but not necessary. Please don’t be shy – every costume deserves another day in the sun (or night trick-or-treating!) We hope that our costume drop n’ swap will support our school community in reducing waste.
Book Week 2019
We are excited to welcome back the Scholastic Book Fair for our annual Book Week. The book fair is taking place in the school hall all week and is open to parents every day at the drop-off and collection times (8.15-8.35, 12.50 – 1.10, 1.50 – 2.10). The children have been enjoying visiting the fair with their teachers.
This Friday, 25th October is our annual dress-up day. A collection of pre-loved costumes are available for our ‘Drop ‘n Swap’ in the school lobby. We welcome all costume donations and invite you to come and take a costume or two. Thank you to our PTA for organising the Drop n’ Swap.
We have already had an amazing response to the Bags2school clothing drive. All donations will be accepted until this Thursday, 24th October and can be left with school staff at the doors at drop-off and collection times.
Festival of Inclusion Art Competition
This term our children from Third Class entered the Festival of Inclusion art competition. One of our boys was chosen as a winner for his beautiful piece on the theme of Family. He was invited to an award ceremony and his artwork is now hanging proudly in Nutgrove Shopping Centre! We are very proud of him.
Coffee Morning and School Cycle Bus
The PTA will host a coffee morning for all parents in the school hall this Friday, 11th October at 8.15am. This will be an opportunity to get to know the parents in your child’s class and in the wider school community.
There will also be a meeting for all parents interested in learning about the school cycle bus. This meeting will take place at 8am on Friday morning in the school hall. All parents welcome.
Credit Union Table Quiz Team Donate Prize Money
Ballinteer Educate Together’s winning table quiz team have generously donated their winnings to our yard equipment fund. The children from Fourth and Fifth Class carefully selected sports and games equipment on which to spend their €200 prize fund and have now donated this brand new equipment to our Playworks yard programme. We are very proud of you all!
Generous donation from Churchtown Residents
The Churchtown Residents Association has generously donated €500 to the Students Council fund raising effort for our new school library! Vincent, Helen and Gerry visited us today and presented our Third Class Students Council representatives with a cheque to help us to furnish and stock our library for the coming year. The children learned about the work of the Residents Association and were able to tell our visitors all about the Student Councils’ plans for our new library. Fund raising will continue with all donations from this Friday’s Pyjama Day also going to the library fund.
We are very grateful to the Churchtown Residents Association for supporting our school. We can’t wait to share photos with them of our new school library in the coming school year.
Coffee Machine Mechanics
Across the school we have been taking some barista lessons. Our classes have looked at various coffee machines and decided to draw some plans and making our own specially designed coffee machines. We have designed machines with built in cream frothers, milk jugs and double coffee cup holders. The children invented so many wonderful coffee machines it is exciting to see what happens when we put our minds to it.
Drawing the plans.
Putting our plans into action. 
The baristas in action in Costa Ballinteer.
Our head chef and barista. 
Spring Ceremony 2019
Photos and videos of our wonderful Spring Ceremony. Thank you to all our parents who came to work in our classrooms this week to make this project happen.
Write-A-Book Awards
The Write-A-Book Merit winners attended a prize giving ceremony last Monday the 1st of April in the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel in Killiney. It was a fantastic event, where the winners had the opportunity to meet authors from other schools and to celebrate their great achievement. Well done to all the pupils in Ballinteer ETNS who took part in the Write-A-Book project and a special congratulations to Noah, Cian, Maia, Lily, Belle and Alison!
Music Generation
Second and Third Class were visited by a string quartet in April. This is part of our involvement in the Music Generations Programme.
The aim of Music Generations is to provide access to high-quality, subsidised and sustainable performance music education for children and young people in Ireland. Initiated by Music Network, Music Generation is co-funded by U2, The Ireland Funds, the Department of Education and Skills and Local Music Education Partnerships.
As part of our involvement in Music Generations, our Infant classes are taking part in The Early Years Primary programme with experienced music educator, Eimear Lacey. Eimear will visit each class weekly to lead them in a fun-filled, movement and song based programme, with an emphasis on child-led group music-making through play within the classroom. This Orff style approach encourages the use of percussion instruments, improvisation and movement to music.
Percussion, string and voice workshops are being organised for some of our other classes in the coming term.
Helpful Otto
We had a very exciting day in Senior Infants today, we met Otto. Otto is a highly trained ‘task specific’ golden retriever dog. He is assigned to a wonderful child and he helps keep him safe and calm during stressful situations. He walks very well on a lead and helps him with day today tasks.
He follows directions and stops when asked. We learned the importance of not disturbing assistance dogs when they are working. We can tell Otto was working when he is wearing his blue vest.
Otto walking on his lead. 
We had lots of fun getting to know Otto today and learning how certain animals can be trained to do special jobs for people.
Otto uses a special lead that is attached to the person he is walking with and they can hold Otto using another lead. We want to thank Otto’s family for bringing him into our class today and helping us learn more about assistance dogs and Autism.
A Visit from the Korean Embassy
Third Class welcomed visitors from the Korean embassy this week. We learned all about South Korea. We explored the culture and were given the opportunity to try on traditional clothes. We also learned about Korean food. We explored the meaning of the Korean flag and also practised some phrases in the Korean language. We even had a chance to play some Korean games. It was very informative and lots of fun!
Ceilí Mór
As part of our Coicís na Gaeilge, all the classes learned an Irish ceili dance and performed them for the whole school!
Infants learned ‘Shoe the Donkey’
First and Second learned ‘Ballaí Luimní’,
Third, Fourth and Fifth learned ‘Ionsaí na hInse’
As well as learning a dance, each class performed a poem (dán) or song (amhráin) or both for the whole school to enjoy.
Environment Hunt
Second class have been learning all about their local area and about Ireland. As part of this theme, we are becoming familiar with our local environment. We read a story about a magpie who cleans up his environment and then we had our Science class outside to hunt for materials in our own school. We foraged out beside the tennis courts to see what materials we could spot. We found twigs, soil, rocks, flowers, feathers and we felt their texture.
Assembly as Gaeilge
Last Friday, our school gathered in the Churchtown Hall and our principal Orla led us in an all Irish assembly. We learned some songs as Gaelige and we celebrated the last day of a very enjoyable Coicís na Gaeilge. We even began to learn our national anthem ‘Amhráin na bhFiann’!
The winners of the write a book were honored in front of the school alongside our winners of the Credit Union Table Quiz.
Anti-Bullying Talk
7th March 2019
Thank you to all our parents who joined us at the National Parents Council of Ireland Anti-Bullying Talk yesterday evening. It was a fantastic turn out and speaks to the commitment of our school community to ensure that our children are happy and safe in school.
If you have any questions or concerns about bullying please do not hesitate to talk with your child’s class teacher or with Órla or Muireann.
Our review of the school’s Anti-Bullying Policy will conclude next week and will then be available on the school website. Further information and support can also be found at www.tacklebullying.ie. The National Parents Council operates a helpline at 01 8874477 or helpline@npc.ie.
All Ireland Finalists!
The Ballinteer Educate Together team have advanced to the All Ireland Final of the Credit Union Table Quiz!
Our ‘Red Team’ of students from Fourth and Fifth Class came first in the Chapter Division Final on 3rd March to earn their place in the final. They will join teams from all around the country in the RDS on 7th April.
The Ballinteer Educate Together were very impressive at the Chapter Division finals and won individual prizes as well as €200 for our school. We could not be prouder of their achievement!
March for Climate Change
A few weeks ago we received an email from 6th class at Donabate Portrane Educate Together inviting us to join them in a March for Climate Change. We began to look into the issue of climate change and discovered that Ireland ranked the worst in the EU for performance on climate change – we were shocked! We researched the many ways we can make small, sustainable changes that can have a positive impact when trying to protect our planet and reduce our carbon footprint – buying fruit and veg without plastic packaging, walking or cycling to school and sharing lifts with friends to live close by, charging electronics only when they need to be charged and plugging them out once they are fully charged, using sources of energy such as solar and hydro power being some examples. Although every little helps and we will now make an effort to be mindful of our carbon footprint, we need the government to prioritise climate action and implement initiatives and incentives to ensure these steps are taken nationwide. Engaging in this research inspired the children to join the March for Climate Change and use their voice to inspire climate action in Ireland.
The march took place on February 13 in front of the Dáil. The children made fantastic signs to bring to the protest. From the moment we left the school grounds the children did an amazing job of raising awareness. Duncan Stewart attended the protest and spoke to the children about the significance of their participation. Eamon Ryan, Catherine Martin, Senator Grace O’Sullivan and Ciarán Cuffe all of the Green Party were also there and expressed how impressed they were with the children and the importance of youth activism. We were so very proud of the children.
Wellness Week
We really enjoyed taking part in Wellness Week this week in 5th class. We kicked it off with a breakfast morning on Monday which was great fun. We chatted about our weekends while eating a healthy breakfast together – with one or two nice treats! We had some really great talks throughout the week – Claire spoke to us about essential oils and positive affirmations, Geraldine and Liz did mindfulness sessions with us and we had yoga with Jen. The children tried to do one thing (non screen related) for wellness after school too and there were some lovely experiences including baking, running, head massages and horse riding.
Student Council Donation to Laura Lynn
In December, our student council organised and ran a very successful bake sale. The council voted to share 45% of the money raised with the Laura Lynn foundation. One of our teachers volunteers with them, and after hearing this, our fifth class representatives suggested we donate the money to them. LauraLynn is a children’s hospice, and do some amazing work to help support children who are unfortunately very ill.
You can find out more information on the amazing work that LauraLynn do by clicking here : https://lauralynn.ie/
Earlier this week, three representatives from our Student Council visited Laura Lynn to present them with our donation. They were extremely grateful and told us that they could not keep doing the work they do without the generosity of people like our school community.
The Arctic
This December the Senior Infants have had the joy of becoming Arctic explorers and going on an expedition to the Arctic. The boys and girls been learning all about Arctic traditions and animals. They boys and girls have been looking at the many ways people and animals have had to adapt to survive in the Arctic.
Some of the traditions they enjoyed learning about were throat singing and ice fishing. They boys and girls agreed that they would enjoy building snowmen if they were in the Arctic. They thoroughly enjoyed learning all about caribou, lemming, huskies, polar bears, seals and snowy owls.
We also introduced a sensory box, full of sago seeds which looked like snow. The children loved the feel of the beans. They constructed Inuit villages in the sensory box and played with the Arctic animal figures. They also enjoyed building Igloo’s out of Lego and cubes.
Thank you to everyone who send in books and toys to help our exploration of the Arctic.
Junior Einsteins in 5th Class
5th class had a visit from a Junior Einsteins scientist following Science Week. We enjoyed taking part in lots of cool experiments including electrocuting Electra the Barbie, making slime, shooting smoke rings and lighting light bulbs using our hands and a plasma ball!
December Drive for Focus Ireland
**UPDATE**
Thank you to all for families for donating so generously to the December Drive for Focus Ireland. Over twenty boxes of useful items were donated for families experiencing homelessness this winter. Thank you to Lisa (Rory’s mum) for squeezing this all in to your car for the trip to Focus Ireland!
During December Ballinteer Educate Together would like to support the work of Focus Ireland. We will be asking for donations of useful new items from each class that the school will then donate to Focus Ireland to support families experiencing homelessness in Ireland this winter.
At this time of year, Focus Ireland is also looking for donations of vouchers for supermarkets and toy shops. This is so that families living in emergency accommodation can buy their own toys, gifts and clothes for their children. By doing this it empowers families to make decisions for themselves and gives them choice.
The children will be learning about the themes of homes and homelessness in their Ethical Education lessons. Fifth Class will lead our December assembly to share all that they have learned.
Children can leave all donations in the box in their classroom.
Welcome to our Art Exhibition
Thank you to all our families who came to help us celebrate our first Art Exhibition on November 27th. The turn out was phenomenal and made it an evening to remember!
Thank you also to our students whose beautiful art work was so enjoyed by everyone.
5th Class Ancient Greece STEM Challenge
Throughout the month of October 5th class were learning all about Ancient Greece. As part of this they took part in a STEM challenge, the aim of which was to design and create either an Ancient Greek chariot or an Ancient Greek catapult. The children worked really hard designing and choosing the best materials. We put their finished products to the test to see which catapult could launch something the furthest and which chariot could actually travel along a flat surface. We had great fun!
Video : Firing Rockets for Space Week!
This week is Science week in Ballinteer ETNS and our topic is SPACE! We were so lucky to have Justin (Eliza’s dad) come into us and demonstrate how a rocket launches. Each class gathered on the astro turf and were delighted to see the rocket shoot up high into the sky. Thank you so much to Justin who made the beginning of our Science Week extremely memorable! You can even re watch it the rocket launch on the video below.
PE in Ballinteer Educate Together
Three classes making full use of the dry weather and astroturf facilities! Can you spot Laura’s Second Class, Aoife’s Fourth Class and Aongus’ Fourth Class enjoying their PE lessons?
Ballinteer Educate Together Art Exhibition 2018
Ballinteer Educate Together would like to invite our parents and families to our first Art Exhibition! The exhibition will take place on Tuesday, 27th November in the Notre Dame school hall with framed artwork from every child in the school from Junior Infants to Fifth Class on display.
The children’s masterpieces (and framed prints) will be available to buy and would make wonderful presents for all the family for the season that is nearly upon us! This year we hope to use the money raised to fund the purchase of additional maths and music equipment for the school so your support would be greatly appreciated.
The PTA are already planning to make this an evening to remember and an opportunity for our parents and families to meet and celebrate our talented students after all the hard work of the first term. We hope to see you there!
Shapetastic
We have had lots of fun in Senior Infants this month learning all about shapes. We used lots of materials in our classes to learn about shapes. Have a look at our cool pentagons and hexagons. We love using lollipop sticks and straws to make new shapes.
We had a lot of fun arranging ourselves into various shapes in our groups. We organised our groups into the new shapes in our classrooms. We love maths and we had so much fun.
We had so much fun using markers and straws in our classes to build shapes and the best thing is we can do the same activities at home. We can’t wait.
Some of the songs we listened learned to help us remember our shapes are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M44hNrLgT3I
Ballinteer’s Book Fair is Back!
The Book Fair will open every day from Monday to Thursday this week at drop-off and collection times for parents. The last opening will be on Friday morning. Enter by the Finsbury Gate and follow the signs. Come, browse and buy! Every year the fair raises much needed funds for new books in our school. Please come and support us.
The children will be visiting the fair with their teachers throughout the week. More photos of the fun at the fair to follow.
The new Student Council!
For the past few weeks, students from First to Fifth Class have been on the campaign trail! We held elections in each class to vote in two representatives from each class to join this years student council. All of the students who participated must be commended and the school walls were filled with campaign posters alongside excellent ideas for improving our school!
On Friday , the newly elected representatives from each class met for the very first time, shared their ideas and decided among themselves what to prioritise. Already the student council will be writing a letter filled with ideas to the PTA, to the staff in our school on the yard committee and they also have a few pressing questions for our principal Orla!
Jessica and Muireann, the teacher facilitators, would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new student council and we can’t wait for an excellent year ahead!
A visit from 4th class
Today Aongus and his 4th class came to visit us. They had made crosswords about Ancient Greece and the 5th class students really enjoyed trying to complete them – they were tricky!
Having a Hoot of a Time!
Tayto, the barn owl came to visit us last week. We learned all about the different types of owl in Ireland, their habitats and what they like to eat. Tayto’s visit inspired us to create fantastic owl fact files and beautiful chalk pastel owl drawings. Keep an eye out for our fantastic art work..It’s coming soon!
National Tree Day
We have been learning all about the importance of trees and also about the different types of trees there are in Ireland. Last Thursday we went on a ‘tree walk’ and challenged ourselves to identify and catagorize as many different types of trees that we could find. We are becoming experts at identifying trees by examining their leaves and berries.
Niall de Burca
Niall de Burca had us in stiches when he visited Ballinteer ETNS to tell us some stories. He has inspired us to become fantastic storytellers ourselves! Watch this space…There will surely be some masterpieces to follow!
Terrific Time in Third
As part of the maths curriculum, Third Class have been getting to grips with all aspects of the concept of time. We have been learning through active, hands – on, collaborative activities and have been having lots of fun in the process!
Super STEM in Third Class
We are having lots of fun exploring science, technology, engineering and maths in active and collaborative ways. We have been constructing towers using spaghetti, string and tape, creating the longest possible length from a paper plate and building paper plate baskets strong enough to hold an entire container of plastic teddy bears! Take a look at how busy we have been…
Our trip to the W.B. Yeats Exhibition
Written by 5th class
On Tuesday we went to the W.B. Yeats Exhibition at The National Library of Ireland. We took the LUAS from Dundrum to Dawson Street.
When we arrived we were met by our tour guide Maeve. She told us a lot about W.B. Yeats and his family, for example we knew he had a brother called Jack but we learned that he also had two sisters called Susan and Elizabeth, or Lily and Lolly as they were better known. When he was in school he wasn’t very good at spelling and yet he became the first Irish man to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. We saw a trophy he won at school. He and his sister had a secret code language and we saw a letter he wrote using this secret code. He was part of a group interested in the occult called the Golden Dawn. In his last poem he wrote about where he wanted to be buried, Under Ben Bulben, although there are questions about whether it is really his body buried there. We saw a lock of his hair, it was a tradition to keep a lock of hair to remember someone. We also saw his spectacles. We saw his original handwritten poems.
After the exhibition we had our lunch and we got to visit the Reading Room in the National Library. We thought it was amazing, the ceiling was so high and so colourful. 
Physical Features of Ireland Projects
5th Class are off to a great start this year. They have worked har
d over the past number of weeks learning about the mountains, rivers and lakes of Ireland. They worked in pairs to create and present projects on a physical feature of Ireland, taking a trip to Dundrum Library and using books and iPads to gather interesting information and pictures to include in their projects. I was one proud teacher!
Thirteen medals for Ballinteer ETNS Athletics
On Monday 21st and Tuesday 22nd of May, athletes from our school travelled to the Cuman na mBunscoil Athletics Competition in Santry. The children from 3rd and 4th Class have been training hard for the past few weeks and we had competitors is a variety of categories.
We are so proud of our team of athletes, who, through sheer determination, won 13 medals for the school. All medals were richly deserved and the winning athletes had to pass through qualifying heats before competing in finals in their respective categories, they really persevered.
We are so proud of the dedication, good spirit, fair play, teamwork and support shown by all of the competitors and their 4th Class supporters. We would like to especially thank Aongus, who organised and trained the teams.A huge congratulations to all!!
We competed in :
- U11 Boys Hurdles : Franko (4th)
- U11 Girls Hurdles: Julia (4th)
- U10s Girls Long Distance 600m: Katie (3rd)*
- U10s Boys Long Distance 600m: Joseph (4th)
- U10s Girls Sprint: Katie (3rd)*
- U10s Boys Sprint: Mark (4th)*
- U11s Boys Sprint : Franko (4th)
- U11 Girls Sprint : Anca (4th)
- U10s Girls Relay : Maia, Erica, Mariam, Maggie, Katie (4th) *
- U10s Boys Relay : Michael, Raveesh, Conrad, Luke, Mark (3rd)*
- U11s Girls Relay : Carla, Hailey, Aimee, Georgia, Anca (4th)
- U11s Boys Relay : Joseph, Kuba, Liam, Daniel, Franko (4th)
* medal winners
Sowing seeds in First class
In First Class we have been learning all about living things. We have carried out an experiment to see what conditions plants and animals need in order for them to grow. This is an aspect of our study about habitats and what habitats we have in ireland. Each group got some different seeds to sow and over the next few weeks we are documenting how they grow.
We have designated a water person in our class to water the plants on a daily basis and we know this is a big job with a lot of responsibility.
The Compost
The pots with all our names.
Putting the compost in the pots.
Each group getting their seeds. It was lots of fun to shake and feel the packet and guess what our seeds would look like.
Finally sowing the seeds which will be watered daily. We can’t wait to watch our seeds grow. 
We have also left one pot in the press in total darkness to see what happens to that pot as it will receive no sunlight in order for it to grow.
Second Class showing their baby chicks to the school
Second Class
Second Class undertook the very exciting project of hatching baby chicks using an incubator in class. They waited patiently for 21 days for the eggs to hatch and made sure the incubator was at the correct temperature everyday so that the baby chicks could grow inside the egg.
The incubator in our classroom and the calendar counting down the time until the chicks are ready to hatch.
When the chicks hatched out of the egg they were very wet and they weren’t moved from the warmth of the incubator until they were properly fluffed up. They needed to be strong enough to survive in the outside world outside the warmth and safety of the incubator before they could explore the classroom.
When the chicks were strong enough for visitors all classes came to our class to look at them. They loved the names we put on the chicks like Conor McGregor.
We learned about what is necessary for the chicks to grow. We fed them some bread and cut up lettuce. We always made sure they had enough water to drink to help them grow. We also learned all about how to create an environment necessary for animals to grow and strive. We fed the baby chicks
When the chicks were ready to move outside our teacher Laura brought them home to live with the chicks at her house. There they have plenty of space to grow and they have a safe place to run around.
Coder Dojo
Barbara Hughes sharing her knowledge and expertise with the classes.
Powerpoint presentation briefly outlining computer science and the science behind coding…….
Magnificent magnets
Fun with magnets in First class.
Testing out the magnets with iron filings.
Testing out the force of attraction through a table.
The children thoroughly enjoyed moving a car across the top of the desk using a magnet and a car attached to a magnet.
Testing out magnetism. The boys were using round hoop magnets to see how attraction and repulsion worked. They thoroughly enjoyed watching the floating magnets “defying” gravity.
Dancing raisins
Investigate what happens when we put raisins in sparkling water and 7up.
This week we wanted to investigate what happens when we mix objects of different densities, ie. raisins and 7up. We chose 7up but any clear fizzy drink will work.
We poured the 7UP into the tall glass. We noticed the bubbles coming up from the bottom of the glass. The bubbles are carbon dioxide gas released from the liquid.
We dropped 6 to 8 raisins into the glass.
Raisins are denser than the liquid in the soda, so initially they sink to the bottom of the glass. The carbonated soft drink releases carbon dioxide bubbles. When these bubbles stick to the rough surface of a raisin, the raisin is lifted because of the increase in buoyancy. When the raisin reaches the surface, the bubbles pop, and the carbon dioxide gas escapes into the air. This causes the raisin to lose buoyancy and sink. This rising and sinking of the raisins continues until most of the carbon dioxide has escaped, and the soda goes flat. Furthermore, with time the raisin gets soggy and becomes too heavy to rise to the surface.
Walking Water
Mission: To see if we can make water to move from one location to another.
Our investigation of capillary action. Capillary action as we found out is how flowers move water from the ground beneath them up through their stems up into their petals and leaves. From our discussion on habitats we discovered that cacti must be really good at capillary action as there is not much water around them.
We used clear cups. paper towels, water and food colouring for this experiment. The best part is we could do this at home very easily as there are not a lot of materials needed.
We put the two glasses next to each other and filled both with the same amount of water. We then put a drop of different coloured food colouring into both. It is easier to see the water with the food colouring in it.
We then put the paper towel which was cut to an inch wide into both cups. We then put an empty cup in between the cups that were full with water.
What happened: After some time we saw the coloured water crept along the paper towels and pooled into the empty cup all by itself. We made the water walk.
Marvellous marbles
The mission: roll a marble from the top of the box to the bottom in the slowest time possible.
This week we were working as engineers looking at ways to slow things down. Traffic engineers use all kinds of ways of slowing down traffic. They have designed methods to encourage drivers to slow down and not drive too fast by setting up speed bumps and chicanes. Some measures make drivers slow down because they change the a the road looks- like planting trees along the sides of the road, or making the road narrower. We took all of this into consideration when building our marble runs.
Firstly like all good engineers we designed a plan before getting started. We looked at the materials we had to work with and organised how we would place them on the box to design the slowest run possible.
We drew our plans using all of the materials and placing them on the box to measure for size before sticking them down.
Next when were were happy that we had used all the materials correctly we stuck them down using double sided tape and blue tack.
Then we tested our first run. we wrote down the time it took to get the marble from the top to the bottom. This was the fun part but we noted that sometimes the marble got stuck so we had to move the track to ensure it flowed freely.
We then all came together and spoke about our designs and the time it took from the marble to run from the top to the bottom. When we heard the times we all set back to work again moving the materials to see if we could make our run slower before we retried the run.
We tried the run another two times and wrote down our times. It was a lot of fun testing the marble, but it was very hard to slow it down the second time.
We really loved this experiment and it was so much fun testing other peoples marble runs and seeing what people design using the same materials.
The winning design with the slowest time. Well done 🙂
Investigating Engineering in Dundrum
As the school have moved location this year we decided to take advantage of this and go on a class walk around our local area. We looked at aerial images of the school on google maps in our class with our teachers and learned about Dundrum. We picked out some of the most obvious features like the road and the Luas and decided to study them as a class. We also looked at some old pictures of Dundrum and we compared our findings against the land features that exist today and we discovered that Dundrum has changed a lot. The Dudrum Shopping centre wasn’t always there and the Dudrum Luas Bridge wasn’t always there. Our teachers explained that the new Luas Bridge used to be a train station years go before the Luas existed.
As part of Engineers week we decided to investigate the Dundrum Luas Bridge. We watched this video in class and decided to see if we could find similar features in our local bridge.
Video on building Bridges:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVOnRPefcno
We noticed that the Luas Bridge also had triangles as they are an important feature of a bridge and used for strength and stability.
We enjoy studying engineering in our local area and reading books about bridges.
Seachtain na Gaeilge agus Lá Glas
The students have had a great time celebrating Seachtain na Gaeilge this year. We have been making a special effort to speak as Gaeilge as much as possible over the past fortnight. The classes have all learned lots of Irish songs and poems. Sarah has been teaching all of the classes some céilí dances and the children have really enjoyed it. To end Seachtain na Gaeilge, we celebrated with a Lá Glas. The children dressed up in green clothes and we had a céilí and ceoilchoirm in the hall. Each of the classes performed a song or poem that they had been learning. Junior infants, Senior Infants and First Class performed the traditional céilí dance ‘Shoe the Donkey’. Second class danced to the Walls of Limerick and our Third and Fourth classes danced to the Seige of Ennis. We had some amazing Irish dancing performances by Lily, Maja, Alisa and Eva from Second Class. We were wowed by the musical prowess of some of our Fourth Class students. Joseph played the banjo, Kian played the violin and Carla played the flute. Bhí craic agus ceol againn!!
Lets get connecting
K’Nex Masters at work
We have been very busy in school this week constructing with our K’NEX. We have decided to explore the world of Civil Engineering and try our hand at building structures for specific purposes.
First of all we spent some time drawing up the blue print and planning the building we wanted to build. We then had a class discussion about the materials we could use. This team chat was great as we could see everyone’s ideas and figure out what would work best.
We then got down to the construction. Some of the children had experience playing K’NEX at home, and they gave us some advice. They knew all the K’NEX tricks and were able to share their advice with the group. They became the project leaders and advisers.
For every structure we started with a foundation and decided that the most stable shapes were squares and rectangles. They were also the easiest to build.
For the roof we decided that a triangle would be a good shape to help the rain and snow flow off the roof. We learned that a triangle is the strongest shape for construction, from building our bridges.
We had so much fun using the K’NEX and can’t wait to use them again.
School to reopen Monday 5th March
The school will reopen tomorrow following last weeks storm. The grounds and surrounding main roads are clear, the pathways remain snowy so please take care when walking to and from the school gates. We hope you all enjoyed the snow !
Up Up and Down
Learning all about Pulleys..
In First Class we are learning about simple machines we use, to make everyday life easier. To start off our investigation we are learning all about pulleys. We first of all looked at a simple video of how a pulley worked and had a short discussion about Pulleys in our lives.
We decided that cranes work the same as a pulley and some other everyday pulleys include flag-posts, boat and masts, wells and building sites.
We looked at the details of a pulley and decided that simple pulleys need two features:
- a curved edge
- a string to attach to the item you wish to be pulled.
There were lots of things with a curved edge and a cylinder shape that we could use and we chose a rolling pin and an empty spool of thread. We then attached items of different weights to be raised up by the pulley.
Some of the things to learn about during this experiment were gravity and pulleys using a fixed and movable pulley. One of the best things about this experiment is that this is an old invention still in use today. It was fun to learn about how things in our great grandparents time were used and how the same is in use today, many years later.
This was the biggest challenge, a heavy bucket which we had to stabilize so none of the pencils would fall out. We learned about balance and where the best place to hook the string to the item would be. We had to pull the weight steadily so the pencils wouldn’t fall out. This was loads of fun.
Trailing around our school
Trailing around School
This week in First Class we decided to take our Maths outdoors and it was loads of fun. We took our clipboards and sheets and went outside to gather the information we needed. We decided to measure how many steps we took from the front door of our school to the gate. We then counted the number of bars in the gate when we reached it.
It was difficult to count and walk at the same time so we had to concentrate very hard. It took us about 150 steps to reach the gate from the front door.
Group number two had to take a record of the number of cars at the front of the school and we wrote down all the registration numbers of the cars and the colour of each car. We discovered that the colour silver was very popular among the teachers in school. Our teacher said that was because it was easier to keep silver cars clean :).
We also had to count the number of windows at the front of our school. As there were lots of windows it took us a few goes to get it right. It was very interesting to note the difference in the window shape from our school building to the window shapes in the new school building where second and third class are.
We thoroughly enjoyed our Maths Trail around the school. It was lots of fun to get a chance to do some Maths outside.
News 2day
Third Class were delighted when Zainab from News2day, the RTE News station for children, got in touch with them and asked them to showcase all the fabulous work they were doing for Chinese New Year!
Micheal and Zainab came in to film and interview them with cameras and microphones, and it was so exciting.
Third class, along with the rest of the school, learned poems and songs and stories about Chinese New Year, along with creating some beautiful art work!
You can watch our fabulous third class on the news by clicking on the link below.
https://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/news2day-30001385/10841473/
Catapult
Catapult experiment
For science this week we looked back into the past to see what science experiement people used years ago. We decided to make a catapult. We made an experiment with lollipop sticks and elastic bands. It was very simple and lots of fun. We realised we needed to reinforce the catapults to make them stronger. Reinforcements are very important for structures in all of our science experiements, to make sure our structures are strong and stable.
We now know that the triangle is one of the strongest shapes in the world, we learned this while undertaking our spaghetti bridge building experiment.
Catapults were first introduced in battles to destroy castles. We learned about elasticity and how it is stretchy and how rubber bands stretch very far. We also learned that if we stretch it very far and let it go it will hurt your fingers.
The best part about the catapult challenge was when we had a catapult race at the end and had to see which catapult could shoot the stick the furthest.
The Science bit:
Elasticity is the ability of an object or material to resume its normal shape after being stretched or compressed. We used a rubber band for the elasticity part of our experiment. When looking at catapults from years ago, we learned that big rubber bands would not be effective they had to use ropes instead. We decided to vary our experiement by using different numbers of rubber bands.
An Egg-cellent Friday
We’ve had a busy week in First Class this week. We have been learning all about protein and how it is important for our growing bodies. We spoke about where protein comes from and why it is important in our diet. As part of our investigation, we decided to carry out the egg and vinegar experiment.
Step one:
On Monday we put one raw egg into a full glass of water and we put another raw egg into a full glass of vinegar.
We made predictions about what would happen to the egg in 24 hours.
Some of our predictions were:
“The egg in vinegar will crack”, “The egg in vinegar will float”, “The egg in vinegar will sink”
We labelled the glasses and set them aside.
Step 2:
After leaving the egg for 24 hours we rechecked the egg to see if any of our predictions were correct. After the set time, we examined the egg and noticed that the egg in the vinegar had changed. There was a new bubbly substance in the glass forming at the top. Everyone got to feel the egg in the glass and we all noticed a difference. The egg was now smoother and some children remarked that it was spongy and foamy, not like a typical egg. We then set the egg aside for another 24 hours. The egg in the glass with the water was now at the bottom and no physical difference was noticeable.
Step 3- The fun part!
After leaving the egg to set for 48 hours it was now time to see what changes had come about. We took the egg out of the vinegar and washed off the foamy substance. We were left with an egg free shell, in a rubber sack. The children all felt the egg and remarked that it was similar to putty or a rubber ball. We had to remember to be very careful with the egg and make sure not to squish it too much in case we burst it.
Testing the egg:
We decided to test the egg by throwing it forcefully onto the grass at the front of our school. We all watched as the egg crashed to the ground and to our delight it exploded. We then examined the remains and the rubber sack had burst and the normal egg was now cracked on the grass.
We thoroughly enjoyed this experiment and working as scientists this week. We realised that while working as scientists we need lots of patience and we need to take records.
We can’t wait for the next experiment.
Edible Engineering Experiment
Edible Engineering Experiment
This week in science we were set the task of working as an engineer to build a bridge out of food. Before we undertook the project we came together as a project team and discussed the work of an engineer. We then look looked at the most important infrastructures in our immediate environment for our build.
The planning stage:
Fortunately for us, our school is located beside the Luas Bridge in Dundrum. From looking at this incredible bridge we studied the structures and shapes that we saw and deduced that triangular shapes are important when building a bridge.
Step 2. Construction
We then looked at some bridges that we had seen on our travels and holidays and we came up with some more examples of bridges Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco and the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
When building the bridges using spaghetti and marshmallows, we realized that sometimes we need to make the materials we are using smaller or bigger to suit the build. We had to half some of the spaghetti and use twice as many marshmallows to make the structure secure.
We concluded that if our structure were to stand string for a long period of time we would have to reinforce the spaghetti and use twice as many spaghetti sticks to make the bridge hold. This was a really fun experiment and we learned that it is sometimes hard to work in a team but when we listen to each other the outcome can be very successful.
Sensory Room
We are delighted to announce that the new equipment for our sensory room has arrived! We have ordered balancing boards, a cosy cave, fun lights, texture blocks, balance beams, Threading Beads, Swirl Balls, Chunky Shapes, Linkits, Active Rainmaker, Simple Slider and Tangle.
When we add this to our yoga and balance balls, bean bag mats and projector lights – our sensory room is changing into the calm and transformative space that will be of such benefit to all of our students.
| A sensory room is a designated space containing lots of sensory stimuli, including light, object, colour and texture. Sensory rooms are excellent for children with any type of sensory need, and act as a safe space where children can come to help restore calm. We would like to extend our sincerest thanks to the PTA for their fundraising effort for the sensory room. It has had a positive impact on so many of our children with additional needs, who are finding it much easier to remain alert, calm and attentive in class, and equally for their peers who also benefit from a calmer learning environment. |
Taking measuring into our own hands
Our busy fingers have been tracking our steps this week in first class. The cold weather didn’t stop us putting our coats, gloves and scarves to go on our measuring adventure. We have been using the i-pads to measure the perimeter of the AstroTurf Pitch and the Netball pitch at school. From walking around the small Netball Pitch we soon realized it was almost half the size of the big AstroTurf pitch.
We had lots fun tracking our steps and the distance we walked, we could see the loop it made on the i-pads. It was fun to take the i-pads outside on an adventure too. When we came back to class we calculated that if we walked around the AstroTurf pitch four times we would have walked a full KILOMETER.
Using google maps in class we could see an aerial and map view of our school building and the area around it. We were able to tell from looking at the map that the Netball pitch was much smaller.
We look forward to tracking our distance withe the I-pads on our next adventure.
Dashing into December
Nollaig Shona Duit
The Sam Maguire came to visit
On Monday 18th December, we were delighted to welcome Donal, our esteemed GAA coach from the Dublin team, to our school for our assembly. They brought with them the Sam Maguire cup, which Dublin won in the All Ireland Final in September.
We all dressed in blue and made headbands and flags for their arrival. We learned Molly Malone and sang this for the players. Aongus then invited up a number of children to ask the players questions about thier sport, the cup and their training. We were delighted to see the Sam Maguire Cup!
Space Week!
As part of Space week, we had a visit from a scientist from Astronomy Ireland. It was so interesting to learn many new things about Space and this visit inspired us to create our very own Space related projects. We presented our projects to the class in many different ways. We watched videos and Powerpoint presentations. Some people made fabulous models of the Solar System. We were encouraged to explore many different aspects of Space and we all learned so much from each other! Take a look at examples of our wonderful projects below!
In addition to our Space projects, we also did fabulous ‘Falling Into Space’ art pieces. We learned about perspective and had great fun putting our new found artistic skills into practise!
Wonderful Writing in Third Class
We have been learning a lot this term in Third Class. We are becoming accomplished writers and are learning about all the different writing genres. We have published Student Council speeches, fact files about whales and many creative writing pieces including a spooky story and an imaginative piece about our very own alien! We are also developing our creative writing skills in Irish. Have a look at some of the wonderful pieces of writing we have done.
Closing the book on October
As Deireadh Fomhair draws to a close so does Autumn and in First class we have spent a great deal of time looking at the changes in the seasons. In first class this month we examined the warm autumnal colours and used them in our Art. We looked to the school grounds for inspiration and as the leaves fell, this became the perfect inspiration behind our art work. We learned all about animals hibernating, and we discovered how to do our bit to get ready for this special time of year. We examined the hedgehogs closely and told Jim the caretaker to look out for any hedgehogs that might be hiding out in the piles of leaves on the school grounds.
Book Character Dress Up day!
To celebrate the end of our book fair, and our mid term break, the children are invited to dress up and come into school as any character from any book.
We had some excellent costumes this year! We had a Mr. Twit, with all the food stuck in his beard, we had Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the whole cast of characters from Harry Potter, ranging from the dementors to Professor Lupin.
We saw the BFG, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Billionaire Boy and Matilda, Diary of a wimpy kid and many many more.
There were even a few adult sized Where’s Wallys. I wonder did you see any?!
Assembly
On Friday. October 27th, our school gathered together in the hall for our very first assembly. Junior Infants sang us a song they have been learning called ‘Five Little Pumpkins’ and First Class sang ‘Winnie the Witch’.
It was great to gather together and to see our whole school in the one place. The children were excited to see their siblings and the other children with their excellent and creative costumes.
Student Council
On Thursday, October 10th, our very first elected student council met. We would like to offer our huge congratulations to the two children, one boy and one girl, from each class who were elected by their peers to represent them. Student council elections took place in all classes from first to fourth throughout the week. We had speeches, campaign promises, and our fourth class even elected their representatives using proportional representation!
Our first meeting saw the creation of a five point plan, filled with ideas that this first student council would like to achieve over the coming year. After much sharing of ideas and discussion, the council settled on the following 5 items.
This year, the council would like to :
- Fundraise
- Improve the yard
- Organise fun classroom activities
- Help other children
- Work with adults to bring about positive change
A virtual photo tour of our new school
We are delighted to be able to showcase our beautiful, newly refurbished, spacious, clean and bright classrooms that will be the home of many happy experiences and memories over the next school year.
You will be able to see your child’s classroom during the parents meeting at the end of this month. Until then, here is a preview of each of the classrooms – not forgetting our huge astroturf!
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who helped us get our classrooms organised and ready for a calm and successful start of the term.
Picnic in the Park!
Senior Infants went for a wonderful walk in the sunshine to Balally Park today. They played in the playground and had a picnic on the grass. Look at all the fun they had!
New Science Equipment
Look at some of our new science equipment! Thanks to the hard work and fund raising by the PTA this year we have been able to order over €600 worth of new science equipment for our school! Second Class have already been exploring and experimenting with our fantastic new electronics equipment.
Thank you to all the parents who organised and attended the table quiz that made this possible.
Thank you for our ipads!
All the children and teachers in Ballinteer ETNS would like to thank the PTA for all their fundraising work on our behalf! We recently received 15 new ipads, giving us a total of 27 ipads all together. The children have been using the ipads to work on their literacy and numeracy in a fun, interactive way. The children have also been using the ipads to take photos, make videos and document their work. The ipads are an amazing resource and we all really appreciate them! Thank you!
Picnic Time in Senior Infants!
We love when the sun shines! Today we were practicing our GAA skills with Dónal, our coach from Ballinteer St Johns. We were hand passing the ball, catching it and kick passing. We were sprinting also. After GAA, we went out to the grass and had a picnic in the sunshine! It was fantastic!
Air Control to Senior Infants!
Senior Infants have opened a new airport in Aisling’s room. The children have been inspired by the stories of Amelia Earhart and the Wright brothers so they are inventing new methods of air travel, as well as operating a commercial airline!
Flights are departing daily to Canada, Norway and Spain (among other places). Security is tight so make sure to check your belongings for sharp objects before passing through our metal detectors. Our flights are strictly hand luggage only, which must be placed in the overhead bins or under your seat. Listen closely to the safety instructions and keep your seat belt securely fastened. Enjoy your flight!
Minibeast Invasion!
Senior Infants have been learning all about gardening and minibeasts over the last few weeks. They loved exploring nature through play when we were doing ‘The Garden Centre’ in Aistear. The children then made their own minibeats using clay. They experimented rolling, pinching, scratching and stretching the clay. They used some of our art supplies to add eyes, wings and legs. Have a look at some of our fantastic results (before they were even painted!)!
Peace Run 2017
We were delighted to welcome the Peace Run Team to our school today. This year the Peace Run is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Galway has been chosen for the European opening ceremony as the most Western point in Europe. The runners from many countries will be represented. The President of Ireland has been invited to welcome the runners. We now have the details confirmed for the team’s schedule while in Ireland and the schools are a large part of this initiative. They try to visit as many schools as possible in every country, so we were really lucky!
You can find out more information at www.peacerun.org
The motto of the Peace Run is “Peace Begins With Me!” – stressing the importance of how each individual can make a positive contribution to creating a happier and more peaceful world.
The Peace Runners visited 2nd and 3rd Classes for a presentation and then our whole school gathered together to touch the Peace Torch and make a wish for world peace.
We are social activists!
We here at Ballinteer ETNS were not happy to hear about the unfair treatment of the girls soccer team by the FAI. It made us angry and cross, so we put our heads together, and every child in our school wrote a letter to the head of the FAI.
We like to think our collective influence had some impact on the positive outcome!
Shadow Puppets
Senior Infants have been learning all about the sun recently. We made shadow dinosaurs to help us discover what caused shadows. We did an experiment to see if we could make the shadow puppets larger and smaller. We used torches in our investigations. Then we went outside and used the light of the sun to play with our puppets. We played shadow tag and tried to make different shapes with our shadows – it was a lot of fun!
The Garden Centre Opening!
The space station has shut its doors in Senior Infants. A new garden centre is opening instead. The garden centre will be selling flowers, seeds, tools and equipment so make sure to pay us a visit for all your landscape gardening needs! Have a look at our garden centre assistants and gardeners hard at work today.
The Aliens Have Landed!
Senior Infants are learning all about Space this month. We have loved learning all about Neil Armstrong’s moon landing. We have been designing space aliens in art and writing about our aliens in English. We have been reading a variety of factual and fictional books about space. We have been singing songs about the planets and learning poems about going to space!
During our play, we have been designing space rockets in construction and making sock aliens in junk art. We have been constructing alien homes on the moon in the sand area -as well as acting out the moon landing and making the astronauts footprints! Aliens have been appearing in our play dough area and there have been several UFO sightings in the socio-dramatic area! The astronauts working there have even made contact with some friendly space creatures!
Have a look at our gallery to see how much fun we are having! 
