The Story of a River

We work geographically to become familiar with a natural feature in our local environment.
Floodplain information click here and click here.
TES iBoard Rivers Activity is part of a Geography Read Alone Information Book.
To do the
Jigsaw activity on Crickweb click here.
Rivers of the world interactive puzzle click here.
BBC Schools Rivers and Coasts activity click here.

Chinese New Year 2013 - Year of the Snake

Chinese New Year will begin on 10 February 2013 which marks the start of the Year of the Snake. The year will be 4711 on the Chinese Calendar. Chinese New Year is also known as the Spring Festival.

Chinese New Year is the main Chinese festival of the year and it is not a religious event. We explain some of the traditions and stories linked to this celebration.

As the Chinese use the Lunar calendar for their festivals the date of Chinese New Year changes from year to year. The date corresponds to the new moon (black moon) in either late January or February. Traditionally celebrations last for fifteen days, ending on the date of the full moon. In China the public holiday lasts for three days and this is the biggest celebration of the year.

TES iBoard Make your own story click here.
The Zodiac Story to go with TES iBoard story maker above can be found here
Chinese New Year Customs click here
Chinese New Year songs and videos click here

National Tree Day 2012

National Tree Day Quiz 2012

1.What do we call the outer covering of a tree?

2.Cricket bats are made from the wood of what tree ?

3.Hurling or iománaíocht  is often called “clash of the…..”

4.Yew trees were grown to make what weapon in the middle ages?

5.Black piano keys are made from this dark hardwood?

6.The world’s largest tree is called the Giant Californian Redwood or…..?

7.Haws are the fruit of the white-thorn.What do we call the fruit of Blackthorn?

8.What edible nut grows on trees in North Leitrim?

Answers.

1.Bark

2.Willow

3.Ash

4.Longbows

5.Ebony

6.Sequoia

7.Sloes

8.Hazelnuts

Visit the Tree Day website by clicking here.

Swallow's Nest

A pupil brought in a swallow's best today. The swallows have flown to warmer lands and the nest is empty. We can see where the mud was stuck to the wall and the nice cozy straw inside. We think the swallow is an excellent builder. Enjoy the spring/summer in the Southern Hemisphere! Click here to view more information about the barn swallow on 'Wild Journeys' by RTÉ.

The last photo is from the archives of Leckaun National School's photographs. The swallows had made their homes in the shed.

Braille Builder

To learn about Braille click here.

Crack the Code - What does the message above say?

You can write a message or see what your name looks like in Braille.

William the Woodpigeon

William welcomed all the children back to school after the Easter holidays. He was spotted by children in the Senior Room just before before breaktime today. Read more about woodpigeons on Birdwatch Ireland. 

Handprint Tulips

We made handprint tulips for Art class this week. We made a video on the visualiser of the instructions we followed. There is a similar idea on DLTK Spring Crafts website. 

What is Spring?

We are learning about Spring in School. The Senior Room read their Spring Poems for us. We really liked them. We liked them because everybody had their own story to tell about spring. 

In the Junior Room we are learning about the life cycle of the frog and the butterfly. In our Daily News we hear about the lambs and calves being born. 

Junior Room information about spring click here. 

Senior Room information about spring click here.

It is a busy time on the farm but it nice work too especially when the weather is dry and mild.

We are reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. Jessie likes books written by Eric Carle. We like the illustrations too.

We will be doing some spring planting in school soon. Senior Infants had 'sow' as one of their spellings this week. The sunflower seeds packet says 'Sow March - May' which means to plant them in either March, April or May.

• We will sow the sunflower seeds in March.
• Teacher will sew up the rip in the the Bee puppet's wing.
• We can sing 'doh, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, doh'.
• I was sick so I didn't go to school.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh

Today we celebrated St. Patrick's Day, the Patron Saint of Ireland.

We made snakes at school but we learned that in fact there never were snakes in Ireland, so there were in fact no snakes for St. Patrick to banish. This information was obtained from naturalist Nigel Monaghan, keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, who has searched extensively through Irish fossil collections and records.

  

For more information on St. Patrick and the banishing of snakes click here. 

Conn Coinín

At school today we had a special visit from a new member of the Leckaun Community. The photos were taken from our classroom windows.

We have named him Conn Coinín because this is the name of the rabbit in our Gaeilge book. We have to be very quiet or we will scare him away.

Happy Leap Day! 29th February 2012

We celebrated Leap Day today in Leckaun National School. We know the rhyme;

Thirty days has September

April, June and November,

All the rest have thirty one,

Except February twenty eight alone,

In a leap year once in four, 

February has one day more.

Leap days happen every four years when we have an extra day in February. When a baby is born on the Leap Day it is very special. They usually have something in the evening news where the parents of the leap babies are interviewed. 

The Junior Room made "Leckaun Leap Day Headbands". It was really fun and we got to wear them home.
We do not have an extra day of school because of the Leap Day. The next Leap Day is in 2016. We talked about what class we will be in for the next Leap Day.

Happy Pancake Tuesday

Happy faces all round Leckaun NS today when we celebrated Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday with a little treat.
To learn more about Pancake Tuesday click here.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today we celebrate Chinese New Year. 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. We had a raffle and some children won Chinese New Year Calendars. The Junior Room made Dragon masks. We gave the Senior Room a fright! 

Our Handprints