J is for Jelly

Baking Pancake and Easter nests

Time to Read Initiative

Time to Read is a wonderful reading initiative that has been rolled out in our school today.

 Thanks to Alere and to the ESB for allowing us to become involved in such an inspiring programme.

Read more about Time to Read by clicking the link below:

Click this link for more photos

Time to Read

Our Time to Read programme provides children in second class, aged seven to nine, with reading support from a business volunteer over a 20 week programme.  The programme aims to increase the enjoyment of, and confidence in reading whilst encouraging self-discovery for the participating children. Our programme was piloted in 2010/11 and evaluated by renowned expert Dr. Eithne Kennedy of St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra.

Teachers and participants report significant impacts on the children.  All business volunteers who partake in this programme receive training in advance which provides volunteers with the desired outcomes, programme details, feedback and support elements, best practice information in terms of reading strategies and child protection guidelines.  Each weekly session consists of the business volunteer reading one to one for 30 minutes each with two children. The children, volunteers and parents have a visit(s) to their local public library.  The business also hosts a workplace visit for the participating children and their teachers.

The ESB through its Energy for Generations Fund is Time to Read’s strategic partner and sponsor 2013 – 2015.

More photos

Rocket writings

Note from the library

Library visit

We were very lucky to be able to go to Ballybane Library last week. We got to meet author Carmel Ui Cheallaigh and listen to her as she read from some of her books. She also gave us some lovely colouring pages to take with us.

The summer reading buzz

Ballybane library are running a super summer reading programme called the summer reading buzz.

Today we dressed up as bees and we visited the library to learn all about it.

We had a wonderful time at the library.

We got all the information we were hoping for, we heard a super story called "The huge bag of worries", we read books, played with toys, did jigsaws, coloured some pages and chatted to the lovely librarians.  They were sooo nice to us.

On our way home we ran through the field and we had a little picnic of bees (yes, bees! .....ones made of white chocolate and jellies that Una the librarian had made especially for us.)

Thank you Una, Siobhán and Robbie for beeing so nice to us today.

We really look forward to reading lots of books over the summer holidays.