Environment « Scoil Maelruain Senior

Outdoor Learning with Paul O Donnell

Ms. Cullivan’s 4th class were very lucky to have the opportunity to take part in an Outdoor Learning lesson with Paul O Donnell. Paul has written a book called Wild Teaching. The children got to plant oak trees and sweet peas. They also learned how nests are made and had the chance to make one.

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Meet our Active School Committee!

Students from all classes have come together to form our Active School committee. The members meet each week and then pass on tips and advice to their class around ways of keeping healthy & active. They are also doing a fantastic job encouraging their classmates to travel to school by foot/bike/park&stride and collecting the weekly CoW and WoW numbers. All the students are doing great work in helping Scoil Maelruain to stay active and healthy – keep up the good work!

3rd Class Trip to the Zoo

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WoW & CoW

Wednesday is COW (cycle on Wednesday) and WOW (walk on Wednesday) day! Each week members of the Green Schools and Active Schools committee ask people how they travel to school and gather the information to see which class tops the poll with the highest number of active school travelers! The results are displayed on the Halla door and the winning class is awarded the Golden Boot for the week! Congratulations to students in Mr Lucas’s 5th Class students who are the first winners of the Golden Boot!

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Christmas is coming!

Ms Carty’s class were lucky to secure a place on a wonderful Christmas Decoration workshop in Tallaght Library today. We headed off to the library with bags full of household recycling. We arrived and we were greeted by Catherine and Migel who helped us to create a selection of Christmas decorations. We used cereal boxes, toilet roll holders, cartons, egg trays and our imaginations!

Here are some photos of our workshop!

Ms Carty’s 4th class :)

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Ms Flood’s class visit South Dublin County Council

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On Wednesday 6th November Ms. Kennedy organised for Ms Flood’s class to visit the South Dublin County Council Offices as part of their Tallaght project work. It was a great experience for the children and they really enjoyed it. Holly Johnston and Ryan Murtagh have described the day.

We left the school and on the way we walked over the blue bridge and then walked through the square. After that we passed the library, the theatre and Rua Red. Then we saw a big building and it was South Dublin County Council.

When we were in the building we sat down on black chairs. The mayor, Dermot Looney, walked in and we all said hello. After we went into a chamber. Elaine told us a bit more about Tallaght. We all had microphones which we weren’t allowed to mess with. After that the mayor asked us questions, what we liked about Tallaght and what we wanted to improve in Tallaght. Ryan and I both asked three questions each. Chloe asked the mayor how heavy his golden chain was and she got to try it on. Sean asked if he could sit in the mayors chair and he got up and sat in it.

At the end we all got a picture with the mayor and we got to touch his golden chain. Then we got to high-5 him! He gave us some certificates and then we walked back to the school and had our lunch. It was a brilliant day!

When the zoo came to visit

Classes in 3rd and 4th were very lucky to get a speaker from the Dublin Zoo Outreach Programme. Pupils got to hear all about the daily routine of animals in Dublin Zoo. Children also got to touch skins and shells from lots of different animals. Check out the photos here.

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5th Class Construction (Ms. Biesty)

Over the last few weeks we have been working very hard on our construction projects. As you can see from the pictures, we have constructed mini-towns from recyclable materials. Working in teams we planned, collected, built, painted and stuck our towns together and are very pleased with the results!

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Incredible Edibles come to Scoil Maelruain!

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Students from Ms Biesty’s 5th class and Mr Fitzgerald’s 6th class have taken up the Incredible Edibles challenge to grow lettuce, turnips, potatoes, carrots and strawberries in the school. So far we have planted the lettuce and turnip seeds in little pots and are waiting for them to germinate before replanting them in the raised bed alongside the carrots. The potatoes have their own planting bag to grow in and the strawberry plants will arrive after the Easter holidays. Fingers crossed we have some yummy fruit and vegetables to taste and cook in June!

Bird is the Word

Check out the pictures of the “Bird is the Word” project, which was completed by students of 5^th(Ms. Biesty) and 6^th (Ms. Walsh) class, and was displayed at the RDS Primary Science Fair earlier this month.

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For three weeks students monitored and recorded bird activity in the school garden three times daily. Initially there was no food provided for the birds and then we added peanuts during week 2 and seeds during week 3. We attracted a large variety of birds to the garden including greenfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches, magpies, blue tits and sparrows. The most common visitor to our garden was the chaffinch and during the 3rd week we logged over 200 birds!