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This week was to be a significant week in the life of our ‘Class of 2020′ , as this Thursday should have seen Ms. Hearne and her class making their way to St. Martin’s Church for their Sacrament of Confirmation. Similar to our Holy Communion class, this special occasion for the school and their families is currently postponed. We are in constant contact with Fr. O’ Reilly to find out any update as soon as we can so that you and your families can plan ahead for your special day to take place in the future! Until then, I ask that you use the wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit, to continue to help guide and support you through these unprecedented times.

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Your courage, wisdom, understanding and right judgement have been significant factors in assisting you to save lives in our country and you the ‘Class of 2020’ will be forever commended for that! Keep up the great work!

To keep us focussed and distract us from any potential upset, this week, sees the ‘Class of 2020’ take part in a transition programme to help prepare them for the move to secondary school. This will take place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10.30am! Don’t forget to join us! We look forward to seeing you online for this!

For the Early finishers this week: pick from some of the following range of activities:

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For those of you who love a challenge this is a great website for puzzles:

https://www.mathsisfun.com/puzzles/number-puzzles-index.html

Two that caught my attention if you want to give them a go were as follows:

The Puzzle:

When asked about his birthday, a man said:

“The day before yesterday I was only 25 and next year I will turn 28.”

This is true only one day in a year – when was he born?

Click here to check your solution https://www.mathsisfun.com/puzzles/birthday.html

or this one

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Find a number with its letters in alphabetical order.

Example: “five” has “fiv” in alphabetical order, but not “e”.

Click here to check your solution: https://www.mathsisfun.com/puzzles/alphabetical-order.html

If you are feeling a bit more artistically inclined today why not try to recreate these two drawings:

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One of a local sight – that of a cow

The other – a non local tourist attraction, that we hope to see again in the future – The Statue of Liberty

Finally, if you feel like something mindful, why not give making your own ‘homemade lava lamp’ a go:

And for those who want to listen to a story:

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https://www.justbooksreadaloud.com/

Have a lovely day boys and girls and I will be back to top up the early finisher activities midweek. Don’t forget as always, feel free to send in any photos of your work to principal@piercestownns.com

A gentle reminder to email in the Active Week record charts to your teachers this week, so that we can get all of the certs in order to be sent out.

Chat soon, Ms. Walsh 🙂

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And in the blink of an eye it’s ‘Friyay’ again! It is simply hard to believe that we are moving into the last week of May. I hope you all had a good week this week and managed to balance the life work challenge that faces us all.

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This weekend would be the start of the exciting build up for one class in particular, that of 6th class, as their Confirmation date was planned for this Thursday 28th May! With the ‘testing week’ over, we would have been facing into a week of rehearsals, choir practice and even school tour season was due to kick off! But alas, all is postponed. All we can do is remain positive in our mindset and steadfast in the certainty, that as a country we are saving lives and keeping a virus at bay.

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In our efforts to keep 6th class distracted and remind them that they ARE our ‘Class of 2020’ and will not be forgotten, we will begin their ‘Transition Programme’ to secondary school this week on Zoom. New beginnings are on the horizon and remember when the storm passes, an exciting new venture lies ahead.

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I hope you all have a lovely weekend boys and girls. Don’t forget to email in your Active Week record sheets by this Fri May 29th and your Active Week Certificate 2020 will be emailed out to you. Try and relax over the weekend and we will be back on Monday to connect with you all again. We miss you very much and congratulate you and your families for getting through each and every day.

Here is a throw back to SNAG 2020 with 1st class giving a rendition of ‘Babaí Siorc’ – enjoy!

Here is a throw back to keeping the ‘DREAMM’ alive singing ‘Fáilte Isteach’ by Wexford composer Sue Furlong, (who passed away in 2018), shortly before we closed our school doors.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! Be kind and be safe! Chat soon, Ms. Walsh

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For the early finishers for the rest of the wek, we are moving from Literacy to Maths. These challenges are suitable for 3 different age groups so there is something for everyone! They can be done on your own or with members of your family.

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Go on …give them a go! Don’t forget to let us know how you get on by emailing principal@piercestownns.com

For our younger classes:

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For our middle classes give this Maths on the Move a go:

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And for our senior classes, try this out……

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Have fun giving these Maths challenges a go over the next few days boys and girls. I will check back in on Friday to wish you a nice weekend.

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Morning everyone! I hope you all had a lovely weekend and got some time to get a break from work and homeschooling. Today marks, phase 1 of the re-opening of our country amidst the recent pandemic. The main message is for the majority of us to still remain at home. Fingers crossed, as the weeks progess, that a ‘new normal’ is on the horizon for us, where restrictions are eased and we can begin to return to some more human interaction.

Well done to our Holy Communion class on marking their ‘special day’ over the weekend. Special thanks to Fr. O’Reilly for the lovely words at mass yesterday for all those who managed to tune in on the webcam. We look forward to planning for your next special date when we return to school after the summer.

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Here is WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPENING THIS WEEK at Piercestown National School …….

This week should have been our standardised testing week in school for all classes from 1st to 6th class, but obviously there are no tests taking place this year as a result of the pandemic. Don’t fear though! School reports will be still be issued before the end of this school year and while they will be slightly different to previous years, we hope they will give you a good account of how your child/children progressed through the school year 2019-2020 up until school closure on March 12th. You will receive information from us in June with regard to school reports.

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For those of you who are looking for some extra work for the next few days, the links and activities are as follows:

Book Dominoes Activity – here is one for ALL ages, as younger children can be helped by older brothers and sitsters/ parents and older children can give this one a go by themselves.

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To access this activity, click on the download button and the page should appear for you*. The instructions are as follows just in case it won’t open:

What you need: at least 10 books

Gather a selection of books from your own book shelf, your school bag, family members.

Place all the books cover face down.

Take the book on the top pile and place it down face up.

Pick the next book. Try to find a reason for it to be connected, maybe it is an illustration on the cover, maybe something in the title that connects them, maybe it is the colour of the book, the author or illustrator.

If you can’t find a connection with the next book, set it to the side and try again later. Remember, when you have two books down your third book could go on either side of the two books.

Try to be as creative as you can.

Why not take a picture and send it into, principal@piercestownns.com and we can see if we can figure out your connections from your photograph?!!!

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And our links focussing on literacy for the next few days are as follows:

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Junior and senior infants – revise your sounds and phonics with this fun interactive website https://www.ictgames.com/phonicsPop/index.html

1st class give your spelling a go with this fun link:

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/forestPhonics/index.html

1st / 2nd class why not try these word searches for fun: https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/phonicFinder/index.html

3rd/4th class – give these spelling a go for fun: http://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/lcwc/index.html

5th/ 6th class explore the intricites of writing as a journalist with this link http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/L935/index.html

Have a lovely day everyone and keep any photos coming in to stay connected when we are apart! Keep up the great work. Kind regards, Ms. Walsh

This weekend boys and girls I want everyone to give a special shout out to Mrs. Corrigan and her boys and girls of 2nd class. They were due to have their special day tomorrow, Saturday 16th May but unfortunately this had to be postponed. They are a credit to themselves and their parents for how they are so positive and sent each other lovely cards to mark their special day. Well done 2nd class!

Myself, Fr O’Reilly and Mrs. Corrigan look forward to the big day when we return to school. As soon as we have a date, we will let your parents know! Meanwhile, on Saturday hopefully this will provide you with a reminder that the best is yet to come!

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Check out a few photos sent into us this week! There will be no prizes for guessing who this painting is of! And how fitting as we await a further update over the weekend….Well done to Séan in 2nd class!

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Well done to these two ladies who were working on letter writing this week. Fantastic work! What better way to keep in touch with people during the COVID-19 pandemic! Well done girls! Keep up the great work!

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Have a lovely weekend everyone and we look forward to hearing from you next week. Take care and stay safe.

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Hi everyone. It is hard to believe that our school building was closed 2 months yesterday and in terms of school life we have been working hard at school from home for 32 days now. Well done to all of the boys and girls for their super efforts and to the parents for working alongside you. We really appreciate your efforts and couldn’t do this without you!

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For our early finisher activity today, I am uploading a competiton for all from Woodies!

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https://www.woodies.ie/little-landscapers-competition

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Terms and conditions of the competition are as follows:

https://www.woodies.ie/little-landscaper-competition-terms-and-conditions?fbclid=IwAR0r3-Lkh1Kmfjg2LjiBoS_bn2LZOJ0NA2LhCZEPwDKg0vdZDxTmV2aYW8M

Best of luck everyone! Wouldn’t it be amazing for someone’s dream to come true from Piercestown N.S.

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Some links for early finishers today:

For the senior classes, why not try an hour of code (if you haven’t used all your screen time up! ) https://hourofcode.com/ie/learn

For 1st and 2nd class go to page 4 of this book and ‘Decode the County’ This is a great activity book with lots to do. https://www.anpost.com/AnPost/media/PDFs/ImagineNation-Playbook-April-2020.pdf

For junior and senior infants , let’s try some counting, matching and ordering with the Gingerbread man. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/gingerbread-man-game

Hi boys and girls. Just a few photos today to connect us with some of our friends and what we are up to as the days go by. These three girls completed some of our early finisher activities off the blog in the last few weeks! And I am posting up three Active Week photos that only came through my email of late.

I will check in on Wednesday with more work for early finishers if needed! Keep up the great work. Chat soon, Ms. Walsh 🙂

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Hi everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend and enjoyed the sunshine that Saturday brought! It is 2 months tomorrow since we shut our doors so suddenly. Little did we know that we would not re-open them for the remainder of the school year.

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I want to give a very special shout out to one group in particular this week, that of Mrs. Corrigan and her 2nd class boys and girls. This week in school would have been one of great excitement, practice, rehearsal, video shoots and preparation. But above all, a week of building special memories. 2nd class you have been brilliant in your continued preparation during our school closure when we had no certainty with regard to school re-opening or remaining closed. You continue to follow Mrs. Corrigan’s work and participated in Fr. O’Reilly’s Holy Thursday ‘Do this in Memory’ mass via the webcam. Your commitment and hard work is to be commended. We are thinking of you all this week and especially as we get closer to Saturday. But remember, by staying at home you are saving lives. Our special day has unfortunately been postponed but upon our return to school we will finish the excellent work that you had started and celebrate your special day, like never before. Boys and girls, it will be worth waiting for. Myself and Mrs. Corrigan continue to liaise with Fr. O’Reilly re: a new date and as soon as a date can be confirmed we will be in touch with your families. For this week, try to not be too disappointed.

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Early finishers suggestions for this week are as follows:

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Some links to keep us going :

Junior and Senior infants- Read along with/or listen to the story of ‘Hairy McClairy from Donaldson’s Dairy’

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/have-some-fun/storybooks-and-games/hairy-maclary/

1st and 2nd class links – Over the course of the week, listen to some of ‘Aesop’s Fables’ being read to. Talk to your family about the story at the end, What do you think it is teaching us?!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/english-ks1–ks2-aesops-fables-index/z73s6v4

3rd to 6th class links – Listen to News2day and write a summary of what you heard https://trte.rte.ie/news2day/

Activity for all – Following on from the success of the art using recycled Milk cartons last week, we are bringing the 30 Day Art/ DT challenge out again and allowing you to pick ANY activity you want.

Don’t forget to send us your creations to principal@piercestownns.com

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Check out ther brilliant art creations from last weeks blog! Well done to Chloe and Emily for this sharing this with us!

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Well that was a quick week. We hope that you all had a good week and are hoping to give you all the Friday feeling with our ‘Finale Video’ complied by Ms. Rea to remind us just how great Active Week 2020 was. As this includes all our videos and photographs from the week this one is 17 minutes long so grab the popcorn and take some time to enjoy it!

See if you can spot, yourself or friends or even family members!

Have a nice weekend boys and girls and I will be back on Monday with some more early finishers work!

Don’t forget to keep sending in some photos to principal@piercestownns.com so we can keep connected even when we are staying apart.

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Credit to Ms. Rea for first sharing this on her Senior Infant blog page yesterday, I feel it is one for the WHOLE school too.

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Activity for 1st- 6th class

As an activity, maybe children from 1st to 6th class would like to have a go at writing on poem from the children’s perspective, it could be called ‘A Pupil’s Thoughts’

All poems can be sent to principal@piercestownns.com

Check out some of the great work that our children continue to do at home. Keep up the great work everyone!

Here is an elephant made from the milk carton by Seán in 2nd class! Isn’t is fantastic. Great work Seán.

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Throw back Thursday, check out the Campbell family and their ‘blue dress up’ for World Autism Awareness Day back in April!

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Check out some of the finest lego creations over the last few weeks!

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Keep up the great work everyone! I will be back tomorrow for the Friday feeling (and fingers crossed) with the Amazing Active Week 2020, video.

Watch this space!

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