Welcome to Kcoins, Kilternan Church of Ireland National School, affectionately known as kcoins (kay-coins).
It's hard to believe it's been 2 months since we started back in school after such a long break from each other. The students in KCOINS have done such a great job of adapting to the new rules and regulations that we have had to implement because of Covid 19 - they hardly need reminding to sanitize their hands on the way in and out any more! We couldn't be happier to be back and in full swing again.
School closed today at 2:10pm and will reopen on Monday, 2nd November at 8:30am.
We would like to wish everyone in our school community and happy and safe mid-term break. It will not be the same Halloween that we are all used to, but we are quite sure you will have some creative ways of making the celebrations fun and memorable!
We have been very busy here at school preparing for everyone's return to school tomorrow. School will not look exactly like it did when you left back in March, but the changes we have made are all to ensure that school is a safe place for everyone who comes through our doors. Several emails have been sent to parents informing them of our new procedures.
When you return to school, we hope that you will feel welcome and safe. If there's anything that's bothering you, please remember to tell your teacher - we are here to ensure that nobody feels anxious about returning to school and we'll do whatever we can to make sure everyone is feeling good about returning to school.
We were sent a list of websites which we are sharing with you in the spirit that some will be useful to some people. Don't feel you have to use all or indeed any of them. A lot of education happens baking a cake or skipping in the garden. Nobody is going to be left behind during this pause in school. This is the official list from the department
https://www.pdst.ie/distancelearning
and here are some additional resources to help with kids at home, there will be some duplication:
https://www.scoilnet.ie/ an Irish portal site
www.twinkl.ie a resource we often use ourselves
Online resources I’ve had a look at these from the list :
- BrainPop, lots of curricular areas https://jr.brainpop.com/
- Curiosity Stream, thousands of documentaries https://curiositystream.com/
- Tynker, coding for kids https://www.tynker.com/
-Scratch, some kids have already tried this at school https://scratch.mit.edu/
- Outschool online classes $5 each https://outschool.com/
- iReady on the app store, learning games https://apps.apple.com/us/app/i-ready-learning-games/id1426614 831
- Beast Academy (Math paid) https://beastacademy.com/
- Khan Academy maths free and pretty good https://www.khanacademy.org/
https://www.twinkl.ie/
- Creative Bug https://www.creativebug.com/ art and craft lessons paid
Www.ravelry.com thousands of knitting and crochet patterns
- Discovery Education https://www.discoveryeducation.com/ seems to be lots of digital textooks
YouTube Channels:
- Crash Course Kids
- Science Channel
- SciShow Kids
- National Geographic Kids
- Free School
- Geography Focus
- TheBrainScoop
- SciShow
- Kids Learning Tube
- Geeek Gurl Diaries
- Mike Likes Science
- Science Max
- SoulPancake
Lots of board games, library books (and Kindle), tinkering/upcycling with household junk, etc.
*Scholastic has created a free learn-from-home site with 20+ days of learning and activities.
https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html
*Pretend to travel the world..Go on a virtual tour of these 12 famous museums.
https://www.travelandleisure.com/attractions/museums-galleries/museums-with-virtual-tours
*This is the awesome free curriculum that some home school familes use. Everything from preschool activities to 12th grade is here!
https://allinonehomeschool.com/
*List of thinking games by grade: https://allinonehomeschool.com/think
https://www.starfall.com/h/
https://www.abcya.com/
https://www.funbrain.com/
https://www.splashlearn.com/
https://www.storylineonline.net/
https://pbskids.org/
https://www.highlightskids.com/
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/
https://www.coolmath4kids.com/
http://www.mathgametime.com/
https://www.uniteforliteracy.com/
http://www.literactive.com/Home/index.asp
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/
https://www.switchzoo.com/
https://www.seussville.com/
https://www.turtlediary.com/
https://www.e-learningforkids.org/
It's not even St Patrick's Day but Kcoins children have been very busy in Green activities, both local and global. 27th January saw our fabulous Dress Up for Australia Day with €1250 raised for the Animal Charity WIRES and for the Australian Red cross. Our junior democrats voted as to how the money was shared.
On 27th February we had our first Green Schools Global Fair. Children represented their countries with such interesting (and tasty) displays. We learned about where some of our families came from originally. There were also very informative projects about global warming, toilets in Africa, bees and many more. Lots of children made Green Promises and planted kale in newspaper pots.