School photographs

Today and yesterday the very talented photographer, Sebastian Kania  has been taking fantastic photographs of all of the children in our school. We all posed for individual shots, before posing in groups and with our siblings. Next week we will be getting a preview of how well we look in our photographs! Until then you can have a look at us in action...

Green fingers!

We are so lucky in our class to have an expert gardener working with us everyday! Múinteoir Karmel is an amazing gardening and has been showing us her skills in gardening and passing on some of her fantastic skills to us! This week we planted some herbs and plants in our school garden. We sowed some pea plants in a deep semi-circle around a tree branch in one of our planting boxes. As the pea plants start to grow, we hope that they will wind their way upwards and around the branch, producing some delicious peas!

We also planted some herbs - parsley, chives, basil and coriander, in shallow ridges beside the peas. As they grow, we plan to thin out the plants and transport them to other areas in our garden. We placed some ribbon across the ridges in order to deter the birds from eating our seeds. 

We will post more pictures in the coming weeks as they grow! Watch this space!

Active Schools' Week

This week in Merlin Woods Primary School we celebrated Active Schools' week. We were involved in lots of different activities, from obstacle courses, to football, hurling and soccer sessions, to playground game challenges, to supporting our school hurling team! We had so much fun and used so much energy this week to promote Active Schools' Week! 

Spring clean

Today our class took part in our school's annual spring clean. Under Múinteoir Karmel's excellent guidance and support, we took care of our school garden. We carefully removed the daffodil bulbs and split some of the larger ones to propagate the crop - this means to make more plants from the crop for next year. 

We then had a turn to replant the bulbs into the soil. 

We also took cuttings from the Privit bush growing in our garden to bring home an plant in our own gardens. 

Bug Doctor!

We have been very lucky to have a very special visitor in our school. Dr. Michel Dugon from the School of Natural Sciences in NUI Galway came to visit our school and showed us some very interesting creatures! Dr. Dugon, also known as The Bug Doctor, taught us all about different creatures, including reptiles and bugs!

Firstly he showed us a millipede and we learned the following facts:

They eat vegetables and fruits and their favourite food is banana.

They have between 40 and 400 legs. 

Next we got to look at several stick insects that are great at hiding among branches and twigs that are similar colours to them. They live a long time, as birds cannot find them to eat them. We had great fun looking for them! Have a look and see if you can find them in these pictures...

We then saw a tiger beetle, also known as a domino beetle. They have 6 unusual white spots that are a warning sign for birds. The spots tell the birds that they make a bad tasting chemical that would make them very sick. The tiger beetles are also very fast insects and can take the heads off their prey!

After this, we learned all about the 4 types of reptiles that still exist: snakes, turtles, lizards, turtles and crocodiles. 

We met Wilbert the 6 year old king snake, who used to live in California, in North America. Wilbert is a gentle snake, who is not venomous - his bite would only be the same as a cat scratch. Snakes like Wilbert can live up to 30 years and though they can't see very well, they can use their tongues to taste AND smell out its prey!! 

We also got to see another type of reptile - a leopard gecko. The leopard gecko is very gentle and lives in the desert in Central Asia and is able to camouflage, or hide, very well to protect itself. They carry their own reserve of food in their tail so they can survive a long time without fresh food and water. 

Following this, Michel showed us a scorpion and we got a big surprise when we found out that only 1 in 100 scorpions are dangerous! The sting of the scorpion that we saw is similar to that of a bee sting and a pinch from him would be the same as a pinch from a crab. 

Finally we got to see a tarantula and we learned that a spider is not actually an insect because insects are creatures that have only 6 legs, where a spider, as we know, have 8 legs! A tarantula also had 8 eyes and uses its feelers to taste, smell and feel! 

Road Safety Day

The children in our class were very lucky to be invited by the Road Safety Authority, to take part in a road safety course in Carnmore Community Centre. The children learned all about how to be safe on the road as a pedestrian, a cyclist and even in a vehicle. They took part in a fun quiz and even got to take on the role of different road users, acting out safe behaviours! It was a fantastic day and the children learned lots about road safety!