We were very honoured to have former pupil Leah alongside the U14 Ladies Goalkeeper Amy, call in to our classroom with a welath of silverware this past week. They had on show; the All Ireland Blitz Trophy, Connacht Final Trophy, Connacht Blitz and the All Ireland Ladies U14 B Trophy. Hopefully role models like these two ladies will encourage future generations of Cloonlyon pupils to play for Mayo. Congratulations to the two girls and the entire Mayo team and management staff. 

Continuing on with our theme this term with insects in art, we had great fun making mosaic art pieces of various insects. We talked about where we see mosiac and how they are usually formed and also how long they have been used as decorative pieces. 

The children looked at the above examples of insect mosaics as inspiration for their work. See the children of the middle room hard at work on their won pieces of art. 

This week the children of the Cloonlyon NS enjoyed the first of their dance lesson with Tommy Stenson. They were introduced to the Sean nÓs dancing and also the bunny hop line dance which the middle room really enjoyed. 

​Thanks to Tommy for a really good introduction and a full filled day for everyone, even the teachers!

On the last day of school in April, the children in the Middle Room were very busy helping Martin to weed the vegetable patch, harvest some of our carrots, onions, scallions and leeks along side adding manure to the soil for out fresh crop of planted onions. 

Martin discussed with the children due to the unusually cold Spring that all the plants were running nearly a month behind schedule. This was why our carrots were quite small this year. 

Martin also talked about the various mini-beasts that we found in our garden, some good and some not so good. One such mini-beast that isn't welcome is the Leather Jacket as these are very harmful to our crops. We compared these to a beaver as they eat the bottom of the stalk felling the plants. 

We were very lucky with the weather at the children had a great morning learning all about planting and caring for vegetables. 

The children of the middle room were lucky enough to attend Supermacs on the morning of April 16th as one of out class members, Jillian, won a colouring competition. The children were invited down in the morning and made pizzas with some of the Supermacs team. This was a really enjoyable morning enjoyed by pupils and teachers!

Read Ella's account of the morning below

Today we went to Supermacs at 9:30 am and left the classroom to go on the bus. It did not take very long to get there. It was a bit cold outside. When we got into Supermacs it was a lot warmer. There was a man who greeted us when we came in. There were sheets with colouring and games on them. 

A man came around with this soapy stuff to put on out hands, then we had to put on aprons to keep us clean. After doing a few games on our sheet, our table was the first to go and make pizzas. 

The first station was to put flour on your dough and keep flipping it over. Then, we had to knead the dough. We then had to use this thing called a spike roller and roll it all over the pizza base. After that we flipped the dough over and back. Then we had to put the dough on a metal circular tray.

Station two was to put the toppings on our pizzas. First of all we had to put some sauce on the dough. We used a spoon and had to move it in circles and leave a little gap on the outside for the crust. Then we had to put cheese on our pizza. We had to put it all over the sauce because if we did not it would burn.

Then it was time for the toppings. There was ham, chicken, pineapple and a few others. The man knocked the pineapple and had to get more. Then we had to put out pizzas in these small boxes. After that we went back to out table and done some games and colouring on our sheet and wait for other groups to finish. 

Finally our pizzas came and they were lovely and warm. Everyone was very happy with their pizzas. About ten minutes later a man gave each table two pots of chips to eat. Then they were giving away two Cluedo games and then as we were leaving they gave us a token to get one free ice-cream cone. Then we got back on the bus to go back to school. 

As the middle room are covering orienteering as part of our PE Curriculum today they moved on to working with clues! This provided a tougher challenge for the pupils but was great fun. Children had to colour their own a map and create a map key. Once they had located a 'control card' they then had to match the clue  to the correct numbered box and draw the shape on their sheet. 

Would you have got them all?

As part of the school's build up to Safer Internet Day, held each year on February 6th, the children in the middle room had a guest speaker in to discuss how to be safer on their personal devices, things they should look out for and who they should speak to if something happens. 

As more and more people use technology and have access to devices, it is important that we all understand while these devices are an excellent, we need to be safe. We need to remember our two important rules. 

1. The Granny Rule - Do not take or post pictures that your Granny would not like
2. The T Shirt Rule - Do not put information or comments anywhere online that you wouldn't wear on a T shirt around town. 

Thanks very much to Tricia for coming in and helping our children to be webwise.

Today we were making St. Brigid's Day Crosses with the middle room classes. Some of us made one out of pipe cleaners as a trail run to help with the process of making the cross. Thank you to the children who brought in some rushes for us to use today. 

Thanks also to Mr Haran who came in to give us a hand.

In the Middle Room we have been learning about the human body in science. The first thing we have learned about is the human skeleton. We learned what makes up our bones, the types of joints that we have in our bodies and also some of the bone names.

The children learned the importance of our skeletons and also the importance of a healthy lifestyle to ensure our bones grow big and strong.

For this artwork the children used paint and black paper to create a rib cage by folding over the page to create a symmetrical print. We then attached the various bones.