Ballymoney Model Integrated Primary School

December 2021

Christmas Daily Mile
Today we took part in our Christmas Daily Mile. This event is being hosted by the Southern Health & Social Care Trust. Their aim is to get as many primary schools around Northern Ireland moving on the same day, to celebrate the positive benefits that daily activity can have on our mental health. We loved showing off our Christmas jumpers to start out this festive season!

Balloon Car Blueprints
This week we have been working on and designing the blueprints for our latest World Around Us experiment: making a balloon powered car! We have created hypothesis, discussed material and will put all our thoughts and planning into practise when we create our very own cars next week.

GAA Training
We loved having Marty with us today again to learn more GAA skills for part of our PE lesson. Today we were learning to scoop the ball in order to form part of the ‘pick up’, a new key skill to us this week! It is great to learn more and more about the sport every week and put our skills to use!

November 2021

Road Safety Week 
Last week as part of Road Safety Week we discussed and researched different ways to stay safe on the road. We enjoyed making our very own road safety posters, researching the history of the bike and much more. We are now road safety experts and will be sticking to our wonderful home uses in the coming Winter months.

GAA Hand Pass Practice 
Today we had fun during our GAA PE lesson with Marty. We loved being able to try out our hand pass through a fun team game and playing an air hockey inspired game with our friends. We have learnt and developed so many new skills and it is always great to get to put them into practise.

“Yes, I can!”
Every day we enjoy taking part in our mental health awareness programme Neuronimo where we learn different skills and techniques for coping with our stress, anxiety and more. This week we have enjoyed learning how to deal with anxiety and how belief in ourselves can help. Standing big and tall and saying “Yes, I can” has really helped our confidence grow.

Our Marvelous Medicine 
Our class novel so far this year has been Ronald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine. As part of our dive into the book we created our very own ‘marvellous medicine’ combining vinegar and baking soda to make a reaction. It was great to see how fizzy, bubbly and foamy our mixtures could become and we loved writing instructions on how to make our own medicine afterwards.

Practising Key Skills
Being sure to practise and learn new, adaptable skills in our numeracy is something we are always doing. Today, we reminded ourselves of the importance of adding and subtracting in our numeracy and the importance it has in all elements of our learning.

Golden Time Table Tennis 
Each week we try our best to earn as much Golden Time as possible through our wonderful behaviour, hard work, selfless acts and more. This past Friday we had an extra special treat for our Golden Time: getting to play table tennis. We enjoyed hitting, bouncing and smacking the balls and trying our best to score points to win against our partners.

What Makes Us Special?
As part of our Friendship Week, we talked about the things which make us unique and different while also those things that bind us together through our similarities. We had fun discussing our similarities and differences together, reminding us that it is okay to be different: that’s what makes us special!

Keeping Safe
Following our look at friendship this week, we completed a number of activities looking at how to be a good friend, what to do if we are being bullied and how we can make an impact in the lives of others. Today we discussed the adults we can trust and who we can turn to in our times of need. It was great to remind ourselves of all the people who are there to keep us safe!

One Kind Word
As part of Friendship and Anita-Bullying Week, we looked at the theme this week of One Kind Word. To emphasise the theme we were asked to change one thing in their uniform to show the difference even one kind deed could make. We loved learning about how our words and actions could make an impact on others.

Anti-Bullying Workshop
During Friendship week the Year 5 pupils took part in an anti-bullying workshop. During the workshop we learnt about different types of bullying, how to prevent it and what we can do to help. Taking part in a Kahoot quiz we worked together to identify forms of bullying and how to deal with it.

GAA Training 
This week during our GAA training with Marty we were learning one of the fundamental rules of Gaelic Football, toe touches. We learnt that as you travel with the ball you have to remember to give it a gentle tap with our toe every few steps. We had great fun practising this new skill and all the others with our partners.

October 2021

World Around Us Highlights
Throughout the term we have enjoyed learning more and more about our theme of Mighty Machines, looking at how the body moves and develops as well as some of the other unique machines found all around us. As you can see from our Term 1A highlights we have been busy developing our skills within World Around Us.

Mathletics Celebrations
How wonderful it is to be able to celebrate our Gold and Silver Mathletics winners for October! It is great to see everyone continue to work their way through the Mathletics activities set each week and achieve certificates for their efforts.

Ditch The Dark Day
As part of our Ditch The Dark Day this year, Mr Gibson’s class dresses up in some of their brightest, most vibrant, clothes to highlight how they could be seen in the dark mornings and evenings ahead. We loved getting to see how bright you all looked!

Battle Ship Coordinates 
We had great fun at the end of October putting our knowledge of coordinates into practice. We enjoyed being able to play battle ships with our friends, trying our best to sink each other’s ships by calling out and marking coordinates on our grids.

Charity Research 
Today we were learning about charity both at home and around the world. We worked together to decide which charities to research, their aims and how they have an impact on the world. We enjoyed using the iPads, laptops and resources to find out fun facts about each charity and how we could do our part to help.

Food Bank Collections 
During October, the pupil’s in Mr Gibson’s Class took an active role in our school campaign to collect food for the local food bank. As part of our monthly value of kindness, we sought to spread this kindness far beyond the school and helping those most in need in our community. We have loved watching our pile of cans, dried food, cereals and more grow throughout the month!

Coping Wheel Instructions 
As part of today’s literacy lesson we focused on writing instructions for how to make a Coping Wheel. We made use of time connectives and even had a list of materials needed alongside our instructions. It was great to reflect on the process we used to make our wheels!

Thinking About Coping 
We had a great time this morning thinking about how we can cope in times of difficulty, both mentally and physically. We had a great chat about ways we cope, what makes us happy and how we are able to use this to better our moods. We created a coping wheel for us to use when we need to, filling it with some super ways to cope.

Celebrating World Mental Health Day 
Earlier this week we celebrated World Mental Health Day. We started our day off with our daily Neuronimo lesson where we learnt about controlling our anxiety through our movements. We finished with our Burst Of Brilliance focusing on calming our nerves through making ourselves bigger. We love doing these daily and they really leave us settled and ready for the day!

Book Fair Fun 

Mr Gibson’s Class enjoyed having a look at the wonderful selection of books available at the Book Fair today! All of our favourites were there and some of us even discovered some new must read books!

Daily Dander 

Every day we take part in our Daily Dander around the school. Today we made the most of the October sunshine and went on our walk. We have enjoyed doing these walks, getting out of the classroom and filling our lungs with the fresh air!

Using Our Numeracy Skills - Addition & Subtraction
This week we have enjoyed our recap of adding and subtracting hundreds, tens and units. Should it be in our classwork books or on the whiteboards, we have been applying our skills and putting this valuable skill to use!

Outdoor PE
With the sunshine sure to fade any day now, Mr Gibson’s class have been making the most of the bright days to use our Outdoor Fitness Circuit. We all had a fantastic time today while exercising outside during PE.

Monthly Value - Kindness
As part of our monthly values, we have been looking at how we can spread kindness in school, at home and in the wider community. We enjoyed talking about different ways we could be kind and spread kindness to others! Check back soon to see how we’ve been spreading kindness with our collection for the local food bank!

Accelerated Reading Success
We have been working really hard over the last week to improve our AR scores and make our way towards being Word Millionaires. As you can see, we love to read, quiz and share a wide range of books. This week we have all made great improvements to our targets and continue on our path towards 100%.

Numeracy - Coordinates
This week we have been learning all about coordinates and translating shapes in our numeracy. Here are some examples of the wonderful work we have produced all while also taking part in new interactive experiences.

 GAA Training Pt. 3

Another Thursday means another week of our wonderful GAA training with Marty during PE! We really enjoyed being able to practise our high today. As you can see, we had lots of fun while trying out this new skill alongside the ones we have already learnt.

Mighty Machines - Healthy Eating 

This term Mr Gibson’s Class have been learning all about the topic of Mighty Machines. Within this topic we have discussed the human body and what it takes to fuel this ‘machine’. As part of this, we created our on healthy lunchboxes, taking advice from the food pyramid to create a balanced break and lunch.

We also made 3-d models of our very own healthy meals, being sure to have a balance of fruit, vegetables and proteins in order to stay healthy! 

We can’t sit to find out more about our very own mighty machine! 

GAA Training Pt. 2

This week Mr Gibson’s Class continued our Gaelic Football training with Marty teaching us how to kick pass. We were able to put this new skill to the test in a class Bench Ball competition. We enjoyed chanting, cheering and  support one another as we practised this new skill! 

☀️    September 2021   ☀️

European Languages Day 

This year for European Languages Day, Mr Gibson’s Class had fun learning all about Poland, it’s culture and customs. We really enjoyed getting to try some traditional Polish food which we all found to be very tasty!  

Roald Dahl Day 

This week in Mr Gibson’s Class we celebrated the wonderful life of Roald Dahl with our special Roald Dahl Day.  We had fun using IPads to find out all about the author, his life and some interesting facts about Roald Dahl. We were amazed to learn that he inspired some of our favourite movies as well as books! 

Class Councillors Election
The start of a new school year also brings with it new opportunities. With that being said, Mr Gibson’s Class have been appointing new members to the School Council. We took part in class elections, giving speeches which highlighted our reasons for wanting the position and the changes we would bring to the class. In the end we appointed two Class Councillors and are happy to welcome Alannah and Arthur! 

GAA Training 
This year, Mr Gibson’s Class will have the opportunity to take part in GAA Training as part of their PE sessions each week. We have been enjoying having Marty with us showing and teaching us some of the key skills associated with the sport of Gaelic football. So far we have learnt how to hand pass and catch using out ‘bucket’. We can’t wait to keep learning these new skills! 

40 Years of Integrated Education

This month we celebrated a milestone - 40 years of Integrated Education in Northern Ireland! To celebrate, Mr Gibson’s Class worked to create the number 40 using their stationary, enjoyed an assembly by Mrs Jamison and even joined with the other Year 5 class to create a number 40 in front of the school. We had great fun getting creative with this very special celebration!

Outdoor PE 

Mr Gibson’s Class had great fun at the beginning of the year getting to use our Outdoor Activity Centre. We enjoyed climbing, swinging and jumping our way through all of the obstacles while making the most of the last of the Summer sunshine!  

Class Charter

During the start of our new term, we have discussed our class rules and we have agreed a Class Charter, which also links in with the School Rights Respecting Articles. We are all different and unique with our own talents, but it is very important that within our Class Charter we all Work together to have a successful year ahead for everyone in our class and throughout our school.

We are looking forward to a great ahead in Year 5!