Saltdough Easter Decorations
For the past two weeks, the senior room have been making Easter decorations using saltdough. We made the dough with flour, salt and water. We had to knead it and then cut out shapes. We left it to dry (which took quite a while) before painting and decorating. I'm sure you'll agree that they turned out really well! Happy Easter from the Senior Room!
Spring has come!
Check out some of our Spring themed art in the Senior Room.
Agriculture, Food & Fairtrade
In the Senior Room, we've been learning about report writing as our English writing genre. We worked on a cross curricular project (Geography, Science, SPHE and some Green School topics) - Agriculture, Food and Fairtrade. The boys and girls worked really hard on these projects, did their own research and typed up their reports on their chromebooks. Well done boys and girls.
Confirmation 2025
Congratulations to the boys and girls from 6th class who made their Confirmation yesterday.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
In the Senior Room, we made Leprechaun fridge magnets!
Making Butter
Every week children in the Senior Room take part in a fun and educational Science experiment. This week the children made butter, which was a great way to introduce children to the science behind food and the process of emulsification. They learnt about the properties of cream and how agitation transforms it into butter. The children enjoyed making the butter but loved eating it with crackers even more. Well done boys
and girls!
and girls!
France Project
The Senior Room have been learning about France in Geography. Each pupil researched their own topic, typed it up on their chrome books and presented their findings to the class. They also made some fabulous art inspired by the Eiffel Tower. Well done boys and girls!
Enterprise Award for Billy
The three generations of Feigherys proudly displaying their fresh farm produce at Offaly Enterprise Day today. Well done to Billy Junior for all his hard work in putting his project together. For a young man he is showing great business acumen already. The Feighery business of producing the freshest of farm produce lies in safe hands. Good man Billy!
Engineers Week
For Engineers Week students visited Birr Castle for an engineering workshop. They learned the history and science behind a rocket launch, designed and launched their own rockets and had an incredible time doing so.
MINI MASTER CHEFS
Pupils visited Multyfarnham Cookery School in Co. Westmeath today. Students learned how to make multi-coloured buns, pipe icing and how to prepare calzone pizza from scratch! The best part was enjoying their food for lunch afterwards. Without a doubt, we have some mini master chefs in St. Kieran’s N.S!
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Stop Motion
This has been the most exciting S.T.E.M project so far! The students created a village using Lego, then devised a cunning story line to use for our Stop Motion project. Stop Motion requires numerous pictures being taken and played as a slideshow in order to create a movie. The students were extremely patient and worked well as a group as they had to take over 100 pictures of their Lego. This is just a snippet of what they have created:
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Hot Chocolate
Just before the holidays, the students made indulgent hot chocolate from scratch. They used the hob, milk and some chocolate as their ingredients. They recorded the equipment, ingredients and method used for procedural writing.
Winter Art
For our winter art, we used cool colours and long brush strokes followed by splatter painting to create wonderful Winter Wonderland pictures. We also had a lot of fun in the process!
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Terrific Tree Houses
Using logs, moss, leaves, branches and other materials, imaginative fairy houses were created by all the students in our school. They looked spectacular when we displayed them for our Christmas Show.
Our Athletics Certificates
Adrian Clancy presented the students of Broughall National School with certificates for their participation in his athletics training over a number of months. The students had immense fun throughout his training.
Awesome Athletics
Every Friday the students are lucky to have an excellent coach, Mr. Clancy, for athletics. In addition to learning how to increase their pace, they are developing their balance, jumping skills and reaction time. Mr. Clancy has some wonderful drills and games and the class love using the reaction balls.
Houses in the past
Maths Week 2019
For Maths Week 2019, maths stations were used to incorporate games and ICT into lessons. Students used problem-solving skills to complete a Countdown problem, practiced their division on Math Playground, played various games such as bingo and used Khan Academy online. This will be ongoing in the Senior Room as math stations are an excellent way to learn maths in a fun way.
Learning a New Skill
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October 2019
5th class became teachers during the month of October! For S.P.H.E, they had to decide what new skill they wanted to learn, plan and deliver a lesson to someone in their class. They decided to learn how to make chocolate rice krispie buns. After discussing what ingredients and equipment they needed, one student showed excellent leadership skills by volunteering to teach the lesson. The following week, that student explained how to melt the chocolate, mix in the rice krispies and distribute the mixture evenly into bun cases. Then the students worked together to make delicious rice krispie buns. Once the rice krispie buns had set, the 5th class were generous enough to give some to the Junior Room! Fantastic teamwork and communication skills were shown by the students of 5th class and they became responsible for their own learning. Well done! |
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fascinating forces
October 2019
During October, the students in the senior room experimented with forces such as gravity and air resistance. Working collaboratively, the students had to design a parachute and a hot air balloon using various resources such as cardboard, ribbon, tape, balloons and black bin bags. After discussing and creating their designs, they predicted which object would fall to the ground first and why. The students had to ensure that the test was fair which meant that the height and time at which the objects were dropped had to be the exact same. The children discovered that the parachute caught a lot of air (called drag) so they concluded that although gravity pulled both objects to the ground, the parachute fell at a slower pace and had a softer landing than the hot air balloon.
During October, the students in the senior room experimented with forces such as gravity and air resistance. Working collaboratively, the students had to design a parachute and a hot air balloon using various resources such as cardboard, ribbon, tape, balloons and black bin bags. After discussing and creating their designs, they predicted which object would fall to the ground first and why. The students had to ensure that the test was fair which meant that the height and time at which the objects were dropped had to be the exact same. The children discovered that the parachute caught a lot of air (called drag) so they concluded that although gravity pulled both objects to the ground, the parachute fell at a slower pace and had a softer landing than the hot air balloon.
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The Digestive System
The senior room were busy learning all about the digestive system in class. It was great to see them working together to build models of the digestive system.
Baking in the Senior Room
In English this week we were looking at procedural writing and decided to learn the step by step instructions to make a barm brack for Halloween. We then took all the steps and put it into practice and bake the brack. It was delicious!
In English this week we were looking at procedural writing and decided to learn the step by step instructions to make a barm brack for Halloween. We then took all the steps and put it into practice and bake the brack. It was delicious!
Our Debating Team
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Well done to the debaters of St. Kieran's N.S. who recently debated against St. Flannan's N.S., Rathcabbin in the Council Chamber in Birr library. The motion under consideration was 'Children know how to use the internet safely'. The children of St. Kieran's N.S. debated against the motion. We are extremely proud of our debaters as they debated in a most impressive manner. Well done!
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Spelling Bee
On Thursday the 5th of March Grace competed in a 'Spelling Bee' challenge. She did extremely well and came 5th in the county. It was a great experience and the school is very proud of her. Well done Grace.
Debating
Well done to our debating team. Grace, Patrick and Niall debated
against Birr boys school. The motion on which the children were debating was
that children in primary school should have mobile phones. Our team debated
against the motion. They were excellent and the school is very proud of them.
Well done.
French
Pupils from 4th, 5th and 6th class are enjoying learning the French language. Thanks to Mrs. O'Brien for giving the children this opportunity.
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Our Science Week
Last week in our school was science week. We made butter, scones, crystals and bridges out of paper. When we were making the butter, Ms Mahon turned on some music so that we could entertain ourselves while making the butter. After about fifteen minutes, the butter was ready. Ms Mahon put it in the fridge to let it harden. The next day, we made some scones. We made two different batches, one with raisins and one without them. To make the scones, we used buttermilk, flour, salt and bread soda. We put them in the oven and waited. After fifteen minutes, the scones were cooked. Ms Mahon spread the butter we made over the scones and gave us one each. They were absolutely delicious. |
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Halloween Fun!!We had great fun dressing up for Halloween. We even got to carve our own pumpkins. We wish everyone a happy and safe Halloween.
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Halloween art
Over the past number of weeks we've been exploring clay in our art. We created some monsters and some scary witches just in time for Halloween.
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Maths Week
We have had a very busy week with Maths Week. We went on a Woodland Maths Trail, played Maths board games, attempted to get out of the Maths Maze and we even experienced Maths through ICT. It was great fun!!
Autumn Leaves
We headed off on a nature trail around the school to find and identify different leaves. We each collected our own bag of leaves which we then used to create our leaf animals.
Do plants drink water?
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In the Senior room we did an experiment to show that plants are living things and that they drink water. We added different food colouring to water and put white flowers and celery in each container. Our flowers and celery began to change colour as the level of water went down in each container. We proved that plants do drink water. Have a look at the results.
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our Maori Masks
We were very busy during September learning all about the Maori in our history lessons.
We even made some masks.
We even made some masks.
Our Virtual World.
The pupils of our school have been busy constructing our own Virtual world replica of Clonmacnoise for the last few months.. A Virtual world is built on a website using software called Imprudence and Scratch. It can be compared to Minecraft and Second Life but we have passwords and secure logins. James Corbett CEO of MissionV organized these for us.
First we researched Clonmacnoise. Then we went there to gather information. We studied life in a monastery. We downloaded Imprudence, Scratch 4Opensim, got our 16 acres and started work. Building with MissionV Virtual World is a bit like Lego online. We use geometric shapes to construct our structures and we add code to make our objects interactive. We added textures to make our buildings look real. 4th, 5th and 6th classes worked together in groups. We had responsibility for different structures and occupations and we had to study them and write reports about them.
Working on the Virtual World was great fun. We helped each other solve problems and make models that looked realistic. We made a fantastic real life model from cardboard and stone. When you are online you are an avatar and you can talk by typing. You can walk, jump, fly and see each other and use gestures to communicate. We used our imaginations to create churches, round towers, Celtic crosses, trees, farms and animals. It was hard to do some scripts or codes for opening doors. We were able to put up information about the history of Clonmacnoise too.
We linked with St Munchins in Limerick and gave them a live tour of our site. We showed them how to do handstands and flips. The best thing we did was just before Easter we got the chance to go into our Virtual monastery using Oculus Rift. This is a virtual headset which lets you actually walk around the virtual world. It was humongous….
Click on the link below to see all the effort and hard work that has been put into our Mission V project.
First we researched Clonmacnoise. Then we went there to gather information. We studied life in a monastery. We downloaded Imprudence, Scratch 4Opensim, got our 16 acres and started work. Building with MissionV Virtual World is a bit like Lego online. We use geometric shapes to construct our structures and we add code to make our objects interactive. We added textures to make our buildings look real. 4th, 5th and 6th classes worked together in groups. We had responsibility for different structures and occupations and we had to study them and write reports about them.
Working on the Virtual World was great fun. We helped each other solve problems and make models that looked realistic. We made a fantastic real life model from cardboard and stone. When you are online you are an avatar and you can talk by typing. You can walk, jump, fly and see each other and use gestures to communicate. We used our imaginations to create churches, round towers, Celtic crosses, trees, farms and animals. It was hard to do some scripts or codes for opening doors. We were able to put up information about the history of Clonmacnoise too.
We linked with St Munchins in Limerick and gave them a live tour of our site. We showed them how to do handstands and flips. The best thing we did was just before Easter we got the chance to go into our Virtual monastery using Oculus Rift. This is a virtual headset which lets you actually walk around the virtual world. It was humongous….
Click on the link below to see all the effort and hard work that has been put into our Mission V project.
Clonmacnoise
Virtual world
Our school is very lucky because we get to do Virtual world. Vitual world is a computerised program. We were asked to build Clonmacnoise in it.
We were so excited. We did it two years ago as well so we are used to it. A Virtual world is a computer based world on which we are representing really world.
To research our subject we had to travel to Clonmacnoise. While we were there we studied the site and got our information. We also took photographs.
In school we had to download Imprudence and Scratch 4 second life. This allows us to write scripts for movement.
To build a Virtual world we have to know technology, maths, write reports, research and do lots of problem solving.
When we are finished we can fly around our world as an avatar and let people see our work.
I think Virtual world is unreal. This is my second time using it and I had great time and a great experience.
And I think we should use it next year.
By Cathal Kilmartin
Our school is very lucky because we get to do Virtual world. Vitual world is a computerised program. We were asked to build Clonmacnoise in it.
We were so excited. We did it two years ago as well so we are used to it. A Virtual world is a computer based world on which we are representing really world.
To research our subject we had to travel to Clonmacnoise. While we were there we studied the site and got our information. We also took photographs.
In school we had to download Imprudence and Scratch 4 second life. This allows us to write scripts for movement.
To build a Virtual world we have to know technology, maths, write reports, research and do lots of problem solving.
When we are finished we can fly around our world as an avatar and let people see our work.
I think Virtual world is unreal. This is my second time using it and I had great time and a great experience.
And I think we should use it next year.
By Cathal Kilmartin
Monasteries Life Of A Monk
There are lots of monasteries around Ireland. Monasteries contains lots of buildings including a church, a round tower, a patch of vegetables or wheat, monks houses, a guesthouse, a scriptorium, a rectory, some cows and sheep all inside an enclosure. An enclosure is walls going around the monastery to protect it from wild animals and enemies.
A church is where they have mass and prayer. It is the most important part of the monastery. It is located in the centre of the monastery.
The round tower is probably 20 to 30 meters in height. It is used for protection against enemies. Somebody looks out from the round tower. If they see enemies coming for the monastery they ring a big bell to get everybody's attention.Then they all run to the round tower and climb a big rope ladder.Then when everybody is up in the round tower they pull up the ladder so that the enemies can't get up into the round tower.
There are around 4 or 5 floors in a round tower the monks also store their treasures there.
The monks grew vegtables or wheat so that they could survive on eating them
Monks lived in little huts so that they could study sleep and pray. Their beds were called cells.
The guesthouse was for travellers to sleep and get breakfast. It was exactly like a bed and breakfast.
A scriptorium was a building where monks came in and wrote books and copied books.The monks wrote their books on calfskin. The calfskin was called vellum.
A rectory was a building where monks came in and ate their dinner in a big dining room.
Monks also kept cows calves, sheep and lambs. They kept cows for the skin to write on and milk from them and it same with the calves and they kept sheep for the wool.
There were many monasteries churches and round towers built but the most famous monastery in Ireland was Clomacnoise.
By Sean Kilmartin
