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.

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:

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

And for our senior classes, try this out……

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?!!!

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

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!

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!

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!

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

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!

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

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

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.

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 🙂

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.

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.

Early finishers suggestions for this week are as follows:

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!

Winners Announcement

And the final roll call on Active Week, Active Home Week is as follows:

Once again, many thanks to ALL the school community for their participation. As there was no cost to Active Schools Week this year and to create as much incentive as possible, the school (due to exceptional circumstances) will utilise funds normally used on new events to supply prizes.

All winning children will receive a €10 Smyths voucher in the post over the next few weeks. All winning adults will receive a €10 Lifestyle voucher and the family award will be a €25 Smyths voucher.

Once again many thanks and please submit your Active School Records to principal@piercestownns.com or to your teacher at their email address.

Many thanks to all of the Active Committee and all at Piercestown N.S. for making this possible. Kind regards, Ms. Walsh

I hope you all enjoyed the sunshine over the bank holiday weekend – and some much needed positivity after the update from the Taoiseach on Friday. While it has been announced that school buildings will not re-open for the remainder of this academic school year, I wish to assure you that school staff and management are working harder than ever.

6th class do not be alarmed- this is not the end! Hopefully, your parents all received our reassurance text over the weekend, and maybe some of you had read our message to you in the ‘April Newsletter’. While there is not doubt that you have been deprived of quality time together in the usual setting and the ‘normal’ milestones that 6th class reach, rest assured you will not be the forgotten class. This, myself and Ms. Hearne can promise you.

Boys and girls, we miss you lots and wish this wasn’t so. You are ALL being so brave and doing a great job keeping each other safe by staying apart. We continue to work together as the best team that we are to get through these unprecented times. In the words of our Active Week finale ‘We’re all in this together’ and we will reunite once this is over.

Parents, I empathise, sympathise and continue to offer words of support as we move forward. Each journey is individual, many of you continue to work, some on the frontline in very difficult situations. Each of your homes operates under different circumstances and while it can be hard for people to imagine what other people are going through, as a staff we are very aware of the difficult circumstances that many of you find yourselves in. We all have lots of questions that remain to be answered but we await further guidance. There is no doubt that additional instructions, direction will be issued from the Government and Dept of Education and Skills in terms of how schools re-open in the new school year. Until then, we genuinely mean it when we say, ONLY do ,what you CAN do. It is our JOB to meet ALL of the children when we return to face to face contact where they are in their learning and bring them to the next stage of their learning. At the moment, we are doing our best to cater for as many households as we can but understand that a ‘one fit all approach’ does not work in these times. NONE of you are failing anything right now, in fact quite the opposite. You are keeping your families safe. This chapter will go down in history books. Keep safe and in time, this too shall pass.

Many thanks to all who completed the survey. Your feedback is important to us on this journey together. We will update you as the feedback is analysed. Don’t forget as always all of the teachers are welcoming of any feedback on their professional email addresses or you can contact me on principal@piercestownns.com

And now back to sunnier thoughts for a few minutes and the final drumroll on what was a FANTASTIC Active Week 2020! So for the last time, can you click on the drumroll……

And the winners of the Friday lunchtime challenge of the ‘Welly throw’ beating Ms. Walsh and her girls by a long way with a distance of 21.9 metres…… was Paddy in 6th class. Good man Paddy!

The slow bicycle challenge was a REALLY tough one and huge well done to all who entered….. the winner for making the best effort to travel in a straight line as slow as they could was….Riley in 5th class for beating Bryan. Well done Riley with a time of 38.20 seconds.

There was a lot of competition for the ‘Slow Bicycle Race’ with a lot of creative entries, with many people weaving zigzag journeys to the 15 metre line, but the PARENT winner for making the best effort to travel in a straight line in the slowest time and beating Mrs. Newport was….Chloe and Jessica’s Dad Alan with 1 minute and 2 seconds! We are giving a second prize however, for the Dad who stayed on the bicycle for the looongest time a staggering 2 minutes 27 seconds and , Paddy and Abbie’s Dad, Declan Walsh!

The ‘DANCE’ award goes to the ‘O’ Mahony Family’, Gemma, Philip, Eva and Chloe for their fancy dress efforts and giving it socks attitude. Big shout out to the O ‘Mahony family! Take a bow!

A full roll of honour will appear on the blog tomorrow night with the announcement of the prizes also!!!!!Wohhhhhoooooooo!!!!

Ms. Rea is also busy getting creative with her video making skills to ensure a record of all of our efforts for our virtual Active Week 2020, are available for all to see. Watch this space as we hope to unveil her creativity as the week progresses!

Check out our blog of photos from last Friday

Our Junior activity for the next few days is ‘Create Elmar the Elephant from a milk carton’

You will need a parent to help you with cutting the milk carton!!!!! Create Elmar from a milk carton over the next few days. I would love to see any finish entries, send them into principal@piercestownns.com

Our Junior link for the next few days is for Junior and Senior infants and is a reading link https://www.starfall.com/h/ltr-classic/

Click into a story and read it with your mam/ dad/ brother or sister.

Our link for 1st and 2nd class is to read one of the ‘Greek Myth’s https://www.starfall.com/h/ir-greek/?sn=ela2-3 (I know 2nd class had worked hard on the Wooden Horse of Troy so that is there if you want to give that one a go!)

Our Senior Activity for the next few days is ‘ Write a Diary Entry’ on how you felt when you heard that school was closed until the end of this school year. Feel free to email it to principal@piercestownns.com

Our Senior link which can be used over the week is https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/coronavirus-comic-diary/

to create your own comic strip of living through the Coronva Virus pandemic.

Don’t forget as always, if you wish to submit, send to principal@piercestownns.com