Orange class are embracing Springtime by bringing new life into our classroom. We have grown cress heads, enjoyed looking for worms (spaghetti) and made our own chocolate flavoured mud. We are focusing on the story ‘The Tiny Seed’ using lots of exciting sensory stimuli.
Our Junior Cycle Level 1 Short Course learning is going very well in Navy Class. We have learnt about our body parts, identified medical professionals and our reasons for visiting them (we even got to see the dentist!) and are currently learning about healthy eating and exercise. We have engaged with this through visits and practical lessons as well as using our interactive panel to sort healthy foods from those that aren’t quite so good for us!
Over the last few weeks some students in Pink Class have created narrated iBooks to share their love of reading with others. We hope to create many more books throughout the rest of the school year. In 2019 Pink class students will share these stories with junior students in a shared reading experience. We are all very excited about this project 🙂
Our good friend Eileen Kirrane has published a second book. We loved her last book and cannot wait to get covered in flour this time around. This might be a nice gift for someone you know. Congratulations Eileen and thank you for thinking of us.
Check out the link below. 
In September Lillian Scanlon organised a walk in Union Wood in memory of Tony Scanlon. 50% of the money was donated to STOP and 50% to St. Cecilia’s School. It was a lovely walk and it was very nice of Lillian and her family and friends to remember us – thank you very much.
A total of 1045 was donated to us.
Blue class have worked very hard on letter recognition, pre-reading and reading skills this term. We are matching letters to our names, writing our names and reading a story each day during sensory story time. Some of our favourites have been the Three Bears, The Pig in the Pond and Peace at last. We visited Sligo library during a social trip and enjoyed browsing through the books and practising using our quiet voices.
Orange class are busy experimenting with patterns. We have used paint to create beautiful star patterns and lego to create pattern towers using a variety of colours. It was really great fun adding texture to our patterns with various fabrics and fibres.
Our station teaching is going very well in Navy Class this term. We painted to rock music, explored and sorted using tactile materials independently and we learnt about hygiene for our Personal Care and Wellbeing PLU. We are really getting to grips with our Level 1 Learning Programmes #L1LPs.
We had a fantastic outdoor classroom day last Thursday! We were very lucky with the weather and we headed out on a nature walk to make our journey sticks. We had some drift wood and as we were walking we looked out for things to stick to our journey stick like – leaves, grass, flowers, twigs and moss. We also gathered extra pieces to make lovely decorations when we got back to school. It was a great day and thank you Shane for organising the day. 
Just before mid-term we were presented with a cheque from Wedges MMC. On the 22nd July they held their annual motorcycle run in memory of Noel Dwyer aka Wedge and this year they chose St. Cecilia’s School as their charity. On Friday 26th October Donagh and Tommy presented us with a cheque for 2985 euro. We are very grateful for their contribution to the playground and want to say thank you to one and all.
Kate Hoare and John O’Connor ran a table quiz for the school in Ballymote recently. They presented us with a cheque for 1210 euro. All proceeds are going towards the playgrounds. Thank you for thinking of us Kate and John. 
This week we participated in the outdoor classroom events around the wider school area. We made nature bracelets using materials that we gathered on a breezy walk. we found rushes, twigs, flowers, leaves and some sheep’s wool. We even found a large feather which may have belonged to a seagull. Back in class we mounted our finished bracelets onto coloured card and hung them up for display!
Today Shane in Green class organised a wonderful outdoor classroom session for some of the classes on the senior end of the school. It was a bright crisp day and with coats on, it could not have been better weather to be outside.
Shane had collected lots of natural materials from his locality, pebbles and stones from the beach, driftwood along the banks of the river, bark from the local woods and we also used what was available in our own playground- leaves, flowers and seedpods.
After handling the small light stones and the larger heavier ones some students built Cairns on the ground, as others built them on their knees while in their wheelchairs.
All students then went exploring to find some natural materials for a wild mobile.
Finally we made a mandala using the stones, cut timber, bark and gathered leaves.
A really super afternoon of creative learning in our outside classroom, with much thanks to Shane.
We were thrilled to get the opportunity to go to Eagles Flying in Ballymote recently (Thanks Mary & Joe, Martin and class really enjoyed his confirmation treat). It was such a fun day out. We bought food and fed the chickens and pigs, those brave enough rubbed a hedgehog, rabbit, mouse and fox and those even braver got to hold or stroke one of the amazing birds that are part of the show.
