It's that time of year again! Christmas celebrations have come to Knockraha and we have had so much fun over the past 12 days leading up to the Christmas break

Festivities started early with PJ Day to celebrate the Late Late Toy Show.

 Storm Barra delayed the start of our 12 days of Christmas with his visit but we still started as soon as we got back to school.

Over the next 2 weeks we had lots of fun dressing up with:
Christmas Jumper Day
Christmas Hat Day 
Christmas Charachter Day

As you can see from the photos the children of Knockraha amazed us all with their creativity.

There were also many other fun activities such as Guess the Sweets in the Jar, Movie Magic and of course a little Hot Chocolate Winter Warmer...
We can't forget of course the amazing hampers made up by the Parents Association for each class that were raffled off!

As always we had some surprise visitors. Midleton Fire Brigade dropped off a prize for one of our budding artists...

The highlighf of the week was the visit from the main man himself! Santa took time out of last minute preparations to hop into his tractor and take a trip to Knockraha. Of course the Parents Association made sure he had some treats for all the classes.


​

After all this excitement all that is left to say is that the staff of Scoil Mhuire, Knockraha wish all our pupils, thieir families and the community a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Science Week 2020 was celebrated in Knockraha this past week. All classes took part by conducting experiments and investigations.

The school was all decked out to celebrate this special week. Scoil Mhuire, Knockraha has always placed a huge emphasis on STEM and it was fantastic to see the children so engaged in the lessons and experiments.

Junior Infants watched Dancing Raisins and made playdough.

Senior Infants.

ist/2nd Class made butter and an exploding cauldron!

A special parade was held in the yard so we could all see the fantastic costumes!

We hope you all have a relaxing enjoyable midterm and are looking forward to seeing you all  back safely next week!
And most importantly...
Happy Halloween!!!!!
​

Scoil Mhuire celebrated their annual Christmas Concert in St Mary's Church on Wednesday the 18th of December.  Preparations began well in advance of the big days with musical arrangements created , carols sung and most importantly sheep headpieces made!

On the big day the weather was not exactly Christmassy and stormy conditions m​eant a quick dash to the church was in order. As always in our school we are so lucky  as some amazing parents came to our rescue and drove chairs, music stands and bags of donkey ears over to the church. We were very grateful to them!

.A crowd of parents, grandparents and some little brothers and sisters gathered to hear the beautiful music.  Ms Hennessey must be commended here for the amazing arrangements of the songs. She gathered a group for guitars and added bells and instruments to other songs. She was helped with this by Ms Murphy who played the piano beautifully to accompany our superb singers.

Each class chose a different part of the nativity to represent, angels, sheep, shepherds, stars, donkeys and kings. Readers from each class narrated parts of the story of the First Christmas.

The audience were treated to songs in English, Irish, Spanish and "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" using "Lámh" a form of sign language.

 After the concert, the Parents Association organised a fantastic reception for all families of the children of the school with goodies and a nice warming cup of tea after the wet walk back to the school!
The Parents Association also organised a ​raffle with some fantastic prizes. We even had some staff members as winners!
Overall a lovely festive day was had by all to get us right in the Christmas spirit.
(Videos to follow)​​

 Scoil Mhuire and the village of Knockraha are lit up by the most beautiful Christmas Tree outside the school.
We must say a huge note of thanks to the Parents Association for organising the tree. Peter Whooley (Pete's Christmas Tree Farm) donated the 14 foot tree and Ted Keating and Jonathan O Callaghan organised the lights on the tree and on the school.

Of course with such a huge tree a lot of decorations were needed! As a Green School we are very conscious of the amount of plastic waste generated at this time of year and we decided not to contribute to this.
On that note  each class was tasked with creating decorations out of recycled materials.
​​

Junior Infants used lollysticks to make stars.
Senior Infants/First Class used coffee pods to make bells.
First/Second Class used pine cones and corks to make Christmas trees.
Second/Third Class used jam jar lids to make baubles.
Fourth/Fifth Class used lollysticks to make snowmen.
Fifth/Sixth Class used wood offcuts to make Rudolph.

Beautiful decorations with no harm to the environment!​​​​​​

We were very lucky to receive a visit from two members of the victorious Cork Minor Footballers Eoghan Nash and Nathan Gough who brought with them the Thomas Markham Cup.
The students decorated the school in red and white in eager anticipation of their arrival.

The boys and their coach gave the students a fantastic speech on the importance of sport, fair play, team work  and working hard. Our future All Stars listened very carefully!

A few questions answered correctly earned some of our students a signed poster.

Attention then turned to Knockraha's own successful ladies! Past pupil Kiera and some of our 5th and 6th class pupils showed off the trophies they had won at county level for camogie and football.

Huge thanks to all for making such a special occasion for the children to enjoy!

Wow! O.ur 5th and 6th class have been taking part in the Daily Mile challenge. Since they returned in September they and their teacher Ms  O Sullivan have run a mile a day (which equates to 12 laps of the school yard)/
On Friday the 18th October they reached 26 miles which meant they had run the equivalent of a marathon.​

The whole school joined in to run the final mile!!

After they completed their run they were presented with medals and certificates to mark their achievement .

Well done to Ms O Sullivan and the 5th and 6th class.

The future astronauts of Scoil Mhuire enjoyed this weeks Space Week. All classes took part in a wide range of activities over all curricular areas to learn more about this fascinating topic.

Some classroom work from the week.

Our little artists were hard at work!