Mullaghbawn
P6 were delighted to welcome artist Conor to support them to create an information board to highlight the importance of Sustainable Development Goal 14 “Life Under Water”.
Pupils enjoyed a very creative day sketching and painting sharks, jellyfish, turtles and even some flying fish.
Huge thanks to John who managed the arrangement of artwork on the display board which shows the fascinating plant and animal life living in our oceans and seas.
P6/7 were delighted to spend the day with artist Conor Mc Ginley, working on the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), 15- Life on Land. They focused their work on our pollinator friends, the bees. 🐝 They sketched, printed, painted working both individually and as a group to create the fantastic display pictured above. P6/7 really enjoyed their day and appreciated the chance to work with an “real life artist”.👨🎨
Conor will be back with us on Wednesday to work with Miss Crawley’s P6 group and next week for a day with Mr Mc Coy’s, P7 group. Each group will focus on a different SDG as part of our Erasmus Project.
A big thank you to the Play Resource Centre, Belfast, for the opportunity to work with Conor, made possible through funding, “The Connecting Through Art Project”.
Our P6 and P6/7 classes were held spellbound by the traditional story teller Niall De Burca today on their visit to the Newry Museum at Bagnell’s Castle.
Niall from Galway, began by welcoming the children from Mullaghbawn, saying how delighted he was to hear that the first group of children he would perform for, were the children from Mullghbawn. He spoke about our village having an abundance of folklore and stories and added that the best storyteller of all time was from Mullaghbawn. He told the children of his great honour in having met the late John Campbell and that John had shared one of his stories with him, this he then retold to the children. He also told a Slovenian story for Maruska our Slovenian assistant and finished with the story of Finn Mc Cool and the Ceallach Bheara.
A huge thank you to Newry and Mourne Council for bringing Niall to Newry and allowing us to attend.
The great outdoors was P6’s classroom today!
It was a short journey to An Tobar Wellness and Social Farm, Silverbridge where pupils were met by Una Walsh and Margaret Finnegan who led an excellent interactive tour of Brian’s Wood. Pupils located their townland name on the Ring of Gullion Townland map, identified native trees and learned about the eco system.
We would like to thank Una and Margaret for inviting us to An Tobar and for giving us the opportunity to learn about our local environment in a very relaxed and enjoyable workshop.
We were delighted to finally meet our Erasmus+ partners from Mayo, Donegal and the Basque Country, face to face in Bilbao last week. (Unfortunately this time our Greek partners were unable to travel.) It has been a difficult 2 years trying to keep our partnership alive with on line meetings. Truely nothing beats sharing ideas, practices and training face to face. A huge thank you to Begonazpi Ikastola, Bilbao for hosting our meeting and making us feel so welcome.
Our project focuses on the 17 UN Sustainable Goals. Each school within the partnership choose one of the 17 goals and shared their ideas for raising awareness of that Goal with pupils. A brief outline is given below:
Mulranny (Mayo), shared their ideas for classwork based around Goal 15: Life on Land and specifically their community’s work around preserving the ancient Irish goat.
Loch an Iuir, Donegal told us about their work on Goal 14: Life below the Sea and “The Great Global Nurdle Hunt”.
St Mary’s shared ideas on Goal 3: Health and Well Being, specifically their experience of using art/crafts for their calming benefits and relaxation.
Basque Country focused on Goal 4: Quality Education and as they showed us around their school they explained the new initiatives they are currently undertaking.
We look forward to sharing all the ideas with pupils, staff and the wider school community over the coming weeks. We hope the pictures give a snapshot of what we were up to!
Miss Crawley + Miss Mulkerns
P6/7 got a glorious morning for their walking tour of Bessbrook Village with Una today. They have been learning about flax and the linen industry in the area and a visit to the village of Bessbrook gave the ideal opportunity to bring history to life. They learned about the Richardson family responsible for the setting up of the village and were able to see a wide range of buildings and learn about their use in Bessbrook’s Linen, industrial past.
Our study forms part of our wider Erasmus Project, with our partner schools, in Donegal, Mayo, Greece and the Basque Country. It is based around the UN’s Sustainable Goals, in particular we will be focusing on Goals 3, 4, 14 and 17. Follow the link below if you would like to learn more about the Goals.
Our last stop of the morning was the Mill Pond where we got close to the local wildlife and had the opportunity to try out the play ground. We heard that the playground is newly upgraded, only opening at the weekend so we were among the first to try out the equipment!
Thanks once again to Una for her enthusiasm and for sharing the stories of South Armagh’s past with our pupils.
Thank you to the boys and girls from P6 and P7 who completed an online evaluation for our Connecting Classrooms project which came to an end last term. Over 2 years we have been sharing lessons with our partner school in Nepal, learning about our partner school’s culture and country. Miss Crawley and Miss Mulkerns joined from Bilbao, Mr Mc Coy and pupils joined from Mullaghbawn and the researcher from Belfast! The children all received a small token from Bilabo in thank-you for their participation, a keyring of the famous flower dog outside the Gugghenheim Museum or a football keyring inscribed with Basque symbols and language.
We know many of our boys and girls enjoy walking on Slieve Gullion’s slopes and on their walks some have been lucky enough to have encountered a red squirrel. A lucky few, have been fortunate enough to meet the conversationalists whilst they have been out recording and monitoring the pine martin population. So, we thought you might all like to know about a documentary on tonight, Sunday 28th, of March @ 6:30 pm on RTE 1. The programme is called “Back from the Brink”, and will feature some of the red squirrels and pine martins from Slieve Gullion in a documentary about conservation successes across Europe.
Over lock down in the coldest winter weather the “Ring of Gullion and Cooley, Red Squirrel Group” put out a call for donations to buy food (peanuts) for the squirrels. A donation from our Erasmus funding on behalf of all the pupils and wider school community of St Mary’s was made. So, tonight we can all watch with pride in the knowledge that St Mary’s has played a small part in this success story!
Congratulations to everyone involved, (especially Marie Mc Cartan for the wonderful photos above), we look forward to tonight’s programme and chatting about it tomorrow.
Dear Parents, Guardians, Past Pupils, Friends of St Mary’s,
Before closure we were working on a joint Art/Music/Dance Project, with our Erasmus + partner schools. Each school/country inspired and challenged the others with a piece of music, a dance or song, to create their own versions of the chosen piece.
As we can’t under the current circumstances complete the work we are asking all our musical, creative, dancing families, (and we know we have plenty of those, we’ve seen the videos 😉), to come up with their own versions of this catchy song sent by our French partners, “L’amour à la française”, and send them to us.
We hope to make a compilation of all the pieces, so it can simply be: a musical version, a chorus of the song or a section of the dance, even recreate the running scene in front of a Mullaghabawn landmark, be as creative as you want and involve the whole family!
We would be eternally grateful as it will enable us to fulfill our obligations and complete the project… and it might be good fun!
The clips to the original song are attached below, when you have completed your piece email us and we will organise a way for you to share your work with us.
Thank you and have fun,
Miss Crawley- ccrawley501@c2ken.net
Miss Mulkerns- pmulkerns611@c2ken.net
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x203r0 -Voici le clip de la chanson des Fatals Picards à l’Eurovision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efmJO9Ve8P4 (Words only at this link)
Primary 7 had a fun filled afternoon on Friday, as we hosted a class céilí as part of the Erasmus+ project. The activity was centered around Irish cultural music and P7 decided to explore the age-old Irish tradition of céilíng.
Some pupils baked bread, scones and other tasty goods which went down a treat with a cup of tea. The class sang the “Rattlin’ Bog” and jived along to the “Galway Girl.” We had two girls who entertained the class by reciting old Irish stories that they learned from parents and grandparents. Two other pupils brought in old games that they taught to their friends. The timing of our céilí was perfect, as St Mary’s welcomed two teachers from our partner school in Loch an Iúir. Mairead and Marrianne taught the class some steps to the “Waves of Tory” and the class absolutely loved it!
As well as giving pupils the opportunity to explore and learn about other cultures, Erasmus also gives our pupils an appreciation of their own culture. Check out the video to see it all in action.
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