Bee Poems Of The Week

By Mary Divilly 3rd Class

By Ella Ward 3rd Class

BUGHOTELS !!!

Conor and Síofra worked hard during their time off school to create a nice, relaxing place for the bees and bugs to relax in, down the bottom of their garden. Great job you two!

Workshop with Marina Levitina

                    Marina Levitina Heritage in Schools Workshop

On the 12th of March, we had a workshop with herbalist Marina Levitina from Heritage in Schools.  Marina lives and works in a newly formed Lough Grainey Nature Sanctuary, near Flagmount in East Clare. She loves plants, the dandelion being her favourite, and it is her mission to inspire children and adults to reconnect with nature in these busy times.

We started the day in the Senior Room by asking each child to name their favourite flowers and trees. Marlon loves oak trees as they can grow into many different shapes. Killian loves the ash tree as we get hurleys from it!  Béibhinn loved the hawthorn tree, Ellie loves the willow tree because you can climb them and Orlaith loves the cacao tree even though we don't find that in the wild in Ireland!

We visualised how the trees, plants and flowers are different to us. Alex suggested that they are different because they don't have abilities for self defense mechanisms, but after further discussions, we thought of plants like the Venus Fly Trap and Mimosa plant which closes up when it's touched. Interesting discussion! Then we discussed our similarities- we need earth, water and food to live.

Marina showed a powerpoint about our similarities. We imagined oxygen as being blue in colour and carbon dioxide as being red. We breathed in 'blue' and breathed out 'red' CO2. Marina had placed a pot with a hawthorn plant (which we called Jasmine) and a dandelion (called Jimmy!) and we imagined the plants breathing out what we need to breathe in and vice versa. It made us more aware of the fact that we are so closely connected with nature. We heard that leaves have little openings, like mouths, called stomata which they breathe through. We saw how plants react to light and actually saw Jimmy the dandelion react to the light in our classroom during the morning!We were delighted to see him move towards the light and open his petals during our talk. We heard that plants respond to touch, they can smell another plant and can even communicate with each other!We heard how scientists found that roots are connected under the forest floor and the trees send information to each other, the mother tree sends nutrients to the younger tree, just like humans!Then, we heard the plant playing music, really! Just look!!!

Later that morning, we went out to show Marina our flowering hedgerow that we planted some weeks before. She was delighted with our work in the Bee Loud Glade-  Buzzing project and was encouraged to see how engaged our children were with the issues facing climate change and their understanding of actions needed to help. Diarmuid had a nice chat with one of our trees!

To warm us up after our very cold walk, Marina made herbal tea from Elder flower. It was a very interesting taste, lots of us liked it, some were unsure and a few of us thought it was nice to try but we wouldn't be getting a refill!!

                        

 

Later, with the Middle and Junior Room we had a dance to respond to music and visualised ourselves as being tiny seeds growing up through the soil. Fionn Carr told us he loves daffodils, Lily's favourite flower is..... yes, the Lily, and Ella loves lavender because it smells nice, rose because it is her middle name and bluebells because they remind her of spring!We all got a thread and made a wish or said a prayer as we hung them on the branches.

         
          

We heard a lovely story and best of all, Marina connected a machine to the leaves of the dandelion and we all could hear the music from the flower!We never heard anything like it before and we are sure that we won't forget Marina's workshop the next time we see dandelions outside!Thank you Marina, Jimmy the dandelion and Jasmine the Hawthorn, we hope to see you soon in Lough Grainey Nature Sanctuary!

Click on the link below to see Marina's website.

            www.wildplantscansing.ie

Bee Poems Of The Week

Bee Poem

by Mary Divilly 3rd Class

Planting Day Our Flowering Hedge 🍃🌱

What an achievement! Many thanks to our friends in ALIS who provided two helpers and a machine to do the heavy ground work and Áine from Seedsavers who coordinated the planting.Thanks also goes to all the mammies and daddies who sorted out the muddy runners. Hopefully our pollinator friends will love it!

 A VISIT FROM MORLEY'S GARDEN CENTRE

We had a visit from Morley's garden centre in Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo today. Paul talked to us about all the pollinator friendly plants we can grow at our school. He told us about the various spring bulbs we can plant in the garden and which pollinator friendly plants are suitable for window boxes. 

They also talked to us about the importance of organic gardening. At Morley's Garden Centre they grow the majority of plants themselves organically in poly tunnels. They do not use any harmful pesticides or insecticides and opt for natural ways to combat garden nemesis like encouraging frogs to come in to deal with the slugs. They even have a bee hive and pet alpacas you can visit. 

As we had learned from Áine ní Fhlatharta (Irish Seedsavers) chemicals like Glyphosate (Roundup) and Neonicotinoid insecticides are deadly to pollinators and unfortunately commonly used in large scale nurseries and garden centres. The chemicals contaminate the soil for months and sometimes years. They accumulate in the plants that grow in the contaminated soil. Even the seeds the plants make can still contain these harmful chemicals. Áine has therefore urged us to only plant organically grown plants. She warned us that most plants bought in Supermarkets are contaminated and by planting them in our garden we would inadvertently lure pollinators to their death. We were therefore very glad when Morley's Garden Centre presented us with a box of organically grown, pollinator friendly plants for our Centenary Garden. When buying plants for your garden please always check with your garden centre that they were organically grown and do not contain any neonicotinoids.

Burren Beo - Week 5

Burren Beo

By Meádbh Costello, 6th Class 

Gráinne from Burren Beo gave us a sheet with a family’s name on it from years ago. We were to pick a person from that family to act out as. After we picked our people we went outside to practice our role play. Then we acted out our plays.

The week after, we watched a video of people lilting and Irish dancing. Later on we got into groups and tried to lilt to a modern song and tried Irish dancing. When we went back inside we had a debate about whether you want Irish music to change, or to keep it as it is.
While we were debating, we stopped for a minute to listen to Irish music and Irish bands and instruments. For the debate, we passed a bean bag back and over so only one person at a time could talk. It was a very enjoyable workshop.

By Meádbh Costello

6th class