Welcome to our Blue Flag Page

5th & 6th Class have spent many months learning about different areas all to do with the European Union.
Check out some of our work below under the different headings.
The junior and middle room also did some great work so be sure to take a look at their sections too.

Historical

5th and 6th class have been learning about why the European Union was formed, back when it was called the European Economic Community. It was to work on communication between countries when there were disagreements and to avoid further wars. 
Europe has a rich history and so in groups, we all took a different period in European history to research and put together in a project on google docs using the Chromebooks. We printed off our projects and created a timeline with all of the different eras.

For homework we carried out some research on famous Europeans and using the report writing skills we had been learning in English, we prepared a written report on them.

​We also took part in the Blue Flag Quizzes. In groups, we each got 4 topics/questions to research. We then presented what we learned to the class to teach them. Then we took part in a Kahoot Quiz and had to try remember as many of the answers as we could in as short amount of time as possible. They were great fun!

Geographical

- We identified countries and cities on a map.
- We each chose a country in the European Union to research for our project. When we had gathered all of the information at home under the different topics, we brought them to school to used our Chromebooks to type the information into google slides and got to include lots of photos too. We liked making the transitions between the slides change! 
- We then prepared a presentation where we stood in front of the class, showed everyone our project on the whiteboard shared 5 things we learned about our chosen country.

We did another Kahoot quiz based on European Geography! We worked together to gather information about some questions before sharing it with the class. We then took part in the quiz to see how many facts we could remember.

Institutional

5th and 6th Class have been learning about why and when the European Union was formed and some of the changes that have occurred along the way. The different groups that enable the European Union to function were also explored such as The European Parliament, The European Commission, The European Council and Courts of Justice. We learned all about democracy and held our own elections for Class Presidents. Nominees gave speeches about why they felt they would be good at the job and those who chose not to be nominated spoke about what was important to them in having a class president represent them. We set up a polling station with polling cards and a ballot box and every member of the class cast their vote. The votes where counted and a Class President both 5th & 6th Class's were elected.
We also learned about the benefits of being members of the European Union, along with our responsibilities of being members of it. Some of the things we discussed were:
- Climate Change & The Environment
- The Euro
- Freedom to Travel/Work/Study
- Helping Regions in Difficulty & Other Countries around the World

We celebrated 'Europe Day' on the 9th May with a very special visit from an MEP. Colm Markey listened to a speech from our Class Presidents telling him about some of the work we've been doing on the Blue Flag Programme. He described what his role as an MEP entails and answered lots of interesting questions for us. He even put a motion forward to allow us to have a night off homework....needless to say, we all voted yes!

Culture and Creative

- 5th and 6th class have been having fun learning some European folk dances such as La Vinca from Italy, German Clap Dance and French Peasant's Dance.
- We have been looking at how to say Hello/Good Morning in different European languages. We found out that some languages are quite similar.

5th & 6th Class learned about a famous European Artist called Pablo Picasso. We looked at some of his famous paintings and the artistic style of cubism. We created our own artwork inspired by his work. Check out our masterpieces below!

We also listened to some music by a very famous European composer, Camille Saint-Saens called Carnival of the Animals. We got to listen to different snippets of the piece and had to guess which animal it was about by listening to the tempo, high/low notes, etc and also identify the different instruments in the piece.

Europe Day

We can't wait to share everything we have been working on at our Come and See Day this term! 
Details to be announced soon, take a look at our Blue Flag display for a sneak preview........

Active Citizenship

We wanted to do an act of kindness so we got in touch with a local nursing home and painted Christmas cards and wrote messages to the residents. We hope they liked them!

As a whole school we took part in some litter spotting and picking in our local environment around Dunboyne. We identified litter hotspots and wrote to Meath County Council with our findings and some suggestions on where to place public bins.

We are holding a 'Crazy Hair Day' on June 14th in order to raise funds to donate to the Red Cross.
We will also be combining it with a whole school Teddy Bear's Picnic so it's going to be a great day!

Junior Infants, Senior Infants & 1st Class

Junior Infants, Senior Infants and 1st class have been learning all about Ireland. We explored Ireland  through different topics like Culture, Famous landmarks, Sport, Food, Famous faces and popular places to visit. We created a fact file about Ireland. We made Irish flags. We listened to traditional Irish music and watched the famous River dance production. Most of the children had never seen this and their reactions were priceless. As we live in Dunboyne we explored in a little detail the county of Meath and decorated the Meath Crest. As part of our History topic we also listened to and discussed the stories of the Children of Lir and the Salmon of knowledge and we were able to link this to the fish symbol on the Meath Crest  and the history of the River Boyne. 

2nd, 3rd & 4th Class 

Historical & Geographical

We chose the European country of Italy to study. The children each undertook a research project on the country to find out facts about Italy such as population, language, capital cities and additional interesting facts. The children also created wonderful models inspired by their research on Italy. Make sure to take a look at the amazing models created below. 

We took an in-depth look at the Italian artist, Michelangelo. We looked at his most famous works of art including the statue of David and the Sistine Chapel. We had great fun painting on our backs under our tables in an effort to appreciate Michelangelo's experiene painting the Sistine Chapel. 

We completed the Blue Star quizzes on Kahoot and had so much fun learning all about Europe!