It is truly the season of “mellow mists and fruitfulness” and the garden continues to supply us with a bountiful supply of pears and apples. The horses expect us each morning and afternoon with the windfall apples and the children really enjoy watching them eat the apples which we gather from the ground in the orchard!September was a mixed bag of weather but whenever we could we made the journey down the field. Now,October has arrived  and the weather seems more settled  and Autumnal. The children are once again enjoying the little game that we play as we go down the lane: ” who can get me a beech leaf? who can find sycamore? touch the ash tree,can you find a fern?” As we have tree cards and tree jigsaws in the school, it is great to be able to relate our work to the real environment!Our nature table is laden with nuts , berries and leaves and the children can see the changing colours of the the leaves as Autumn will move into Winter.All too soon, Autumn will be over and our trees will have lost their leaves and gone for their long Winter sleep.

And its project time again! Our first project is Irish Mammals and wonderful work is arriving on a daily basis. Eamon was first in with “the red fox” and he even had a picture of himself holding a real fox!Joseph taught us about the 3 species of deer in Ireland and how to recognize them.  Ceola  also gave us great information on the badger and we learned about his lovely underground home called a sett!Lana Maye had beautiful drawings in her project of the red squirrel and we learned about the food he likes to eat. Saul too told us many facts which we didn’t know in his Seal project and his art work was really good.!Today, Harry Q  brought in his Dolphin project with beautiful drawings and we learned all about  “echolocation”!Cara also did the Irish Deer and her mummy helped with the great drawings and lovely writing.Moss  had a photo  of a hedgehog which visits his Aunty Marys garden every night and he has seen it so he had first hand information for his project. Umi  told us all about otters and this animal has always held a great fascination for me .We are learning so much and enjoying listening to each child tell us about his special animal!And there are more to come!! Thank you to Mums and Dads for wonderful work and for teaching us so much!There is some great artistic talent out there!

After a very miserable and wet first day back to school,the weather is warm,sunny at times and allows us to spend time outdoors which really helps the settling in process. It was lovely to welcome back Lara,Lane-Maye, Ceola, Eamon, Harry and Joseph as my “chief helpers”! It makes everything that much easier when the older children set the example of simple things like putting work back in the correct place and also helping to establish the sense of order we have in the school so that all runs very smoothly.

We really are enjoying these days with little picnics in the field and trips down to see the horses and give them fallen apples from the orchard.It is a wonderful Autumn for fruit.The apple trees are laden with fruit and children have had great time picking them. Hopefully we shall make apple slices next week and perhaps some juice too. Yesterday we picked 3 kg of damsons so I shall be busy over the weekend making damson jam and maybe have a surprise little jar for all! Next week we shall also pick pears as they are so plentiful that the branches are practically breaking!Our autumn raspberries are starting to ripen so the garden is a whole new world of discovery for the children and they are loving every moment of it.

I have started an afternoon class and even though they are all new children they have settled in very well. The warm weather has allowed us to play outside every afternoon and the highlight every day is  the trip down the field to see Scoby, Ruby,Polo and Sally(the horses).Even in looking at the horses the children are learning as in school one of the family boxes is the “horse family”. So here in the field we have  mares and  stallions and  they can now see that Ruby and Sally are mares whilst Polo and Scoby are stallions!We also take in our beautiful surroundings and by standing on the hill the children can see Coney Island,Cnoc na Rea, Ben Bulben,a lighthouse,Rosses Point and later on as they study the land forms in school they will be able to see a bay(Sligo bay) and a peninsula!So much to learn and see on a simple walk! I hope the good weather continues as this type of learning relating everything to the real and natural world is wonderful.

Summer is really here and its school outdoors. Today we  stayed outside practically all morning and only went in for a short time. Fionn brought in his beautiful kangaroo project which went down a treat with all especially as Sonny had brought in a lovely kangaroo story.  Lorenzo also arrived with his quoll project and he was able to tell us all about this strange little marsupial himself.

As the children( especially the boys) have boundless energy at present, we went down the field to race up and down the hill. They love these little races and every one gets a chance to win. Swallows were flying overhead so we decided to go down to look at the nests in the farm yard and barn. The children were absolutely thrilled to see the swallows zooming in and out of the barn . They were mesmerized as they looked up and saw all the little nests stuck to the roof and silently listened to the swallows song. I don t think any chicks have been born yet but we will keep a watch. As there were so many swallows flying, I renamed the barn “swallow town”. When we went back to school I took out our swallow that sings and pressed his tummy so that they could hear the song again. I then pressed the tummy of the chaffinch and they had no problem distinguishing the songs .So now every child can recognize the swallow and chaffinch!!

Today was a beautiful day and when the children arrived this morning,they played in the garden and had fun. Patrick had brought in his “Duck Billed Platypus ” project,beautifully done with the help of his Mummy! We were amazed to see what a small creature it is and like the Echidna it too lays eggs!We loved his painting of the DBP and Patrick was so proud!Later on in the morning we had a picnic in the garden ,smelled the herbs again,admired the blossom on the pear and damson trees and had a game of hide and seek! We gathered daisies and  sat on the rug and I gave a Practical Life lesson on making daisy chains!  Making the little holes in the stems proved difficult for some but then Seb found wild garlic and said he would like to make a “garlic chain” for his Mum!And so the boys made ” garlic chains “and the girls just wanted old fashioned daisy chains!!

Who could not be aware of the beautiful birdsong filling the air on these delightful Spring days? I take every opportunity to allow the children to listen and try to identify the different songs as we go on our little walks.On Sunday ,(may 1st) whilst on a cycle near Drumahair I heard the cuckoo call. As I hadn’t heard him in a couple of years, I really wished that I could share this wonderful moment with the little ones as sadly due to continual noise from traffic it is difficult to hear him in our vicinity. I told them the cuckoo story and they learned the old cuckoo poem and maybe if we keep listening and are very lucky  we might him here!

Sonny arrived back after a wonderful holiday visiting his grandparents in Australia.He brought us a present of a singing kookaburra to add to our singing bird collection and much to the delight of the children he told us all about the animals he had seen. The stories of the kangaroos on Kangaroo Island sent a ripple of excitement through the room and so we decided that we must explore Australia and discover these animals ourselves. Once again,each child picked an animal and there is great excitement every day as the wonderful projects arrive. A very happy Seb was first in with his Frilled lizard and then Lara arrived with the Wombat!Harry was very proud the following day to have a very informative Opossum  project . This morning Roisin brought in the Emu, Eamonn the Koala(once again Roisin did the beautiful writing for both projects.) Sonny naturally did the Kookaburra and his Granny and Grandad helped him!Liadan s Echidna project taught  us a huge amount about this strange little animal who has characteristics of a bird(beak),reptiles (lays eggs)and marsupial mammal in that it has a pouch!We all loved the name of a baby echidna “a puggle”!They love hearing  stories about all the  unusual  animals ,a great favourite at the moment is “The Tasmanian Devil”, We look forward to discovering other animals as the projects arrive.

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