Incredible Edibles Project 2024
Task 1: Food Origin
This Year we brought our 5th and 6th class students to Gannon's Farm. Jack is a student in 5th class and the farm belongs to his Father and Uncle.
This was a wonderful experience. On the farm we saw, cows, calves, bulls, heifers and bullocks. They have a variety of animal breeds including, Belgium blue, Freisians, Limousin, and Angus. These animals are reared until they are ready to be slaughtered in the local Kepak. As the factory is so close to the farm there is less of a carbon footprint on the Gannon farm.
In Winter the animals are kept indoors in slatted sheds. As the weather has been poor this year, some animals remain indoors. It is also an opportunity to fatten up these animals and get them ready for Kepak.
Gannon's also carry out crushing and screening work. You can watch this work in action on the clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ukwHnGYgs
Here the infant classes matched food items based on what we eat and where it comes from.
A visit from local farmer and TD Michael Fitzmaurice.
This Year we invited our local TD and local Farmer Michael Fitzmaurice to come to talk to us. Michael is a local farmer who knows all about the importance of the farm in our lives.
Michael is also a TD and he using his voice to support issues in rural Ireland including turf cutting.
Here our 3rd class student demonstrates how turf is footed in the bogs in Ireland.
This is Liam and his cousin. They love to help out on their Parents' Farm. Liam's favourite part of farming is getting a spin on the quad and tractor.
Here we see Liam with his sister Chloe. They enjoy feeding the cows and calves and fattening them up to be sold as meat.
The Infant classes joined Mr. Conneally and Sunshine on a school trip to Turoe Pet Farm. Here the children got to meet, pet and feed a wide variety of animals.
We saw ducks and pigs.
We loved feeding the goats.
The rabbits were so cute.
We finished off our tour in the Playground. It was a fantastic day.
Task 2: Identification: Irish Foods and Non- Irish Foods.
Here we see very busy children from 3rd and 4th class looking at various packages and identifying their country of origin.
Here we see Tommy in the supermarket trying to buy Irish. Look he just spotted some bord bia approved mushrooms and bacon. Well done Tommy.
The children really enjoyed this activity.
Here Kealan has gone to the supermarket with his Mum and looked at various meat and vegetable produce to identify their Origin.
Kealan's sheet on the left is 100% Irish Origin. Tommy also have a sheet which is 100% Irish Origin, he even had FREE rhubarb from Co. Roscommon!
Aoibhínn and Andrew also almost fully sourced Irish Produce. However, the lettuce on Aoibhínn's list came all the way from SPAIN.
Task 3: Growing Element - Plant your Incredible Edibles.
March 2024:
We could not wait for March to arrive. The teachers had told us that our Incredible Edibles pack would be arriving soon. When it arrived Mrs. Connolly's class took charge of planting.
It was a cold March day, we put on our coats and out we went to plant.
We love planting.
Artur is covering up the seeds that have just been planted.
Now, we will cover our seeds to protect them from the weather and any bugs that may be about.
tiny black seeds
We love planting, especially strawberries.
This is a strawberry plant from last year, that is beginning to sprout again.
We have a full bed of strawberry plants in our polytunnel at school.
April 2024:
As the weeks passed we loved watching our seeds beginning to emerge and finally sprout and grow. 
We did not cover our lettuce seeds, as we learned that they need light to germinate. We watched them closely and with 2 weeks they had sprouted and now they are ready to be harvested.
Our Turnip seed is growing well, but we feel it may be a while yet before it is ready to eat.
We love the purple flower that grows on the chives.
Mr. Conneally's class took charge of planting the onions. As you can see they have done a super job.
May 2024:
Here we see turnip, parsnip and carrot. They are all still too small to harvest.
We brought the lettuce into the classroom, washed it and tasted it. It was delicious. 
Look at how big the potatos have grown already. Task 4: Preparing and Cooking - Life Skills.
Every Friday morning the children in our 'Sunshine class,' like to bake. We asked them to come up with some recipes that included foods from the farm.
Here we see two of our students , helping Mary by rolling out the pastry, which they then turned into this beautiful apple pie.
Our After School Club, enjoy helping Trish and Éabha prepare dinners during the week. Today they cooked fresh meat with carrots and pasta. YUMMY.
Here we see 3rd and 4th class students busily using the eggs from our hens to produce some fresh scones. Alex gives the THUMBS UP sign for his tasty scone.
Here we see the children in Mrs. Connolly's class happily baking banana bread. They are getting quite good at baking it, as the senior infants baked it last year also.
Leah, a sixth class student baked this delicious Christmas cake using dried fruits, flour and eggs.
Task 5: Healthy Eating Week
The Students in our school, each received a healthy eating chart on the 1/5/2024. They were asked to challenge themselves to eat between 5 and 7 pieces of fruit and vegetable every day this week.
As you can see this was more of a challenge then the children originally thought it would be!. Below arejust a sample of what we found out.
This year we were very lucky because healthy eating week also tied in with our food dudes week. Everyone in our school made a special effort to eat a rainbow of colour this week.
5th and 6th class students wrote about food dudes in their English copies. They also drew some great healthy fruits and vegetable pictures.
This photographs shows our food dudes committee members. There are two students from each of our classrooms. The children were responsible for delivering the fresh fruits to their classmates every morning.
Tommy in Senior Infants, wrote out the ingredients of his favourite meal - beef stew. He needs lot of delicious vegetables and beef to create this meal.
The Afterschool staff and students worked very hard to create this delicious and very nutritious stir-fry noodle dish for their dinner during healthy eating week.
Lily standing outside her families polytunnel. Inside Lily is looking after the peas and beans.
Lily loves to grow sunflowers and as Lily with a pot of mint.
you can see they are doing great this year.
Lily is really looking forward to tasting some delicious strawberries.
Lily sent in some photographs from home of her working in her garden. Lily likes to help her family in the polytunnel. She finds that because of the heat the plants do better inside it rather than outside. However she has a lovely patch of strawberries and herbs outside.
Here is a recipe that we found on the internet.
Eoghan is adding in some ice to keep the smoothie cool, while Kealan closes the lid on our smoothie maker machine.
We whizzed it up using the nutri bullet and then poured it out into cups and glasses.
Here we have a group of children with varying opinions on its taste!!!
We have also planted some pumpkin seeds and are really excited to see them grow. We have to wait until October to harvest them.
We really enjoyed the 2024 project. Thank you for allowing us to experience it.
Incredible Edibles Project 2023
Task 1
Food Origin:
This year Mr. Conneally invited Donal Collins from McHale Machinery to come and talk to the children about the machines he produces in his factory. Donal knew two of the families in our school because Donal supplies their Daddies with fusion balers for them to test out for him.
Donal explained the importance of the machines on the farm in preparing the soil in order for the wheat, barley, grain and other crops to grow.
Above is a student's account of Donal's visit.
This is one student's favourite meal - spaghetti Bolognese. She wrote a list of the ingredients in the food group that they belonged too.
Here we see Tommy in Junior Infants with his little brother. They live on a farm. The boys love helping their Daddy take care of the animals, especially when it means getting a lift on the quad!
We had some fun creating our own farms using tractors and play fields from the infant classroom. We also talked a lot about the size of farms when we completed these maths sheets.
Ms. Morgan's sister Rachael is a nurse and also a farmer. She showed us these two day old baby lambs and the Ewe when we were out for a walk with Tidy Towns.
Rachael's lambs were featured on the Lidl catalogue for prime quality Irish meat last year.
Geraldine came to our school as part of the 'heritage in school's' initiative . She showed us some old photographs of life long ago. She spoke to us about her spinning wheel and how it was used long ago to make wool and wool clothing.
We had great fun using the wheel
and also trying on the wool costumes.
The younger classes really enjoyed completing the worksheet on Food origin.
We all know that eggs come from hens because we have our own hen at school who sometimes lays eggs.
Andrew knows all about taking care of hens. He last a lot of hens, ducks and geese on his farm. We think that he is doing a super job feeding them.
A lot of children in our school LOVE horses. Here are some horses in a field beside Phoebe's house. She loves to visit them and feed them carrots and apples.
These girls pictured are in their Daddy and Uncles Farm. There are cows and sheep on their farm. The girls help out on the farm every week.
Trish, our afterschool teacher found a very hairy caterpillar when out walking.
This baby deer was spotted in the field near kilbegnet graveyard.
Task 2: Identification: Irish Foods and Non-Irish Foods.
For a homework assignment the children were asked to identify Irish produce. They were asked to 'spot' the Bord Bia Quality Mark on Irish Produce. We think that they did a fine job!
The children were then asked to identify foods that did not come from Ireland. Here is what they found.
Children in 3rd and 4th did a 'Food Miles' task with Ciarán from the Green School to demonstrate how far some food items travel before they reach our plates.
Daniel, Cónan and Nathan's Mom is from China. She taught us Chinese this year as part of the 'Say Yes to languages programme.'
She very kindly gave us some Chinese treats to taste.
The older classes had a look at home and examined packaging in order to find out where the food came from. Here we see Lily's work.
They also enjoyed completing the Irish Produce Puzzle worksheets.
Task 3: Growing Element - Plant your Incredible Edibles.
This is our infant classes, they were so excited and eager to get planting in our polytunnel. 
Looking intently at the various seed sizes.
We made some signs to show where our lettuce, chives, potatoes and strawberries were planted.
It didn't take long at all for our plants to begin to grow.
These are our strawberries after just a few weeks. We can already see the flowers forming and a few strawberry buds appear. We cant wait for them to turn red and juicy.
So far, our spinach seeds are not doing very well. Maybe we watered them too much initially. We really hope it will grow.
The lettuce is doing really well and getting stronger every day.
We love the purple flowers on our chives. Mrs. Connolly told us that bees love purple and yellow flowers. We wonder if Jane, Noah's and Séan's bees like the nectar from chives.
Mr. Dowd, our Principal always eats the honey that Jane, Noah and Séan's Dad sends in to the staff in our school. He eats it on Mary's homemade brown bread. Mary is an SNA in our school.
The turnip and potatoes are growing really well.
5th and 6th class used the rest of the space in the polytunnel to plant other vegetables. They planted tomatoes, peppers
beetroot , onions and cabbage.
Here we see Andrew in his garden at home. He is very busy tidying it up and preparing it for the summer months ahead. We could all do with Andrew to come and help us in our gardens!
Task 4: Cook a dish at home or in the classroom.
3rd and 4th class made a smoothie with just three ingredients, bananas, strawberries and natural yoghurt.
We made pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.
We were learning all about Italy with our Student Teacher. She let us make PIZZA.
We used some of our Incredible Edible Vegetables to make vegetable soup.
We made fresh brown scones to have with our soup!
Here, we see how Billy really likes his red fruit- strawberries are his favourite.
We really enjoyed the 2023 project. Thank you
Here is Beth the Beetroot, doesn't she look great!
Here comes Potato Eight. He has super eight powers.
Chloe saw this calf being born. She loves farming.
Here Chloe, in the Mickey Mouse hat, is helping her Dad and neighbour to pull the new born lamb called Lucy.
The contents of the box delivered to our school.
The delicious Strawberry plants, we were very excited to see how these would grow. 
Mr. Conneally and Mrs. Connolly helped us plant the seeds that we received.
Team work - makes the dream work
Pea seeds.
George is waiting patiently to water his seeds.
The senior girls have been learning about biodiversity.
Very kind Parents and members of the community also left us some tomato plants and onion sets to plant in our poly tunnel also.
You can see the peas beginning to form and grow in this picture.
Delicious onion sets
The Turnip is doing really well. We love the unusual colour of the leaves on the plant.
Sadhbh really enjoys spending time in the polytunnel at break time. She likes to watch how everything is growing. She has tasted the lettuce and peas.
Emily isn't going to leave any fruit behind. Yummy.
Chloe, Emily and Ava made some delicious pineapple trees in their house. Nearly too good to eat! The colours of the fruit is very attractive.
We completed the worksheet, filling in our lunchbox with our favourite fruit and veg.
This is a photo of some carrots, parsnip and beetroot.
Here, we see how Billy really likes his red fruit- strawberries are his favourite.
Again the red fruits and veg were the most popular choice for Phoebe. She likes to eat raspberries and strawberries.
Thank you to Shane and Sinead for their wonderful presentation on bio-diversity and water conservation. Shane and Sinead presented each child with their very own tree sapling to be planted at home in their garden, symbolising their motto, I've planted a tree and my garden is pesticide free.'
Here is a picture of our Incredible Edibles notice board at school. The students will continue to bring in food packages and other food related items and we will discuss whether the food is a processed or unprocessed food. We will also discuss where the food belongs on the food pyramid.
We also made banana bread. It is my favourite type of bread!
Kai's Mum is a Chef and she made us a delicious fresh cream cake.
Leah is a 5th class student who loves to bake, she baked her sister Phoebe's birthday cake.
Chloe and Ava are in 2nd class. They love to bake cakes with their Mum. Chloe baked her own communion cake with some help from her Mum!!
For Emily's birthday this year, she attended a baking camp. She invited all her friends to attend. Emily decorated her own birthday cake and her friends made cupcakes and pizza. Sounds great Emily!
Here Ava is making some 'sheep' decorations to go on top of a birthday cake for her brother.
5th class students, Emma and Leah demonstrate how to bake 'queen cakes' to their classmates.
3rd and 4th class made a fruit salad and buns
Again, we meet Andrew. This time he is in the kitchen baking bread. I bet it tasted delicious.
Task 5
Healthy Eating
The children had so much fun writing up their poems all about healthy eating!
The Infant children took great pride in designing healthy eating face pictures.
1st and 2nd class completed the activity on the Eatwell Plate.
Here, we see how Billy really likes his red fruit- strawberries are his favourite.
This child really enjoys eating bananas. They ate 6 in the week. Cauliflower was their least eaten vegetable. Eaten just once this week. However, each day the child reached the recommended 7pieces of fruit and veg. Well done.
For 4 days this week the child ate the recommended 7 pieces of fruit and veg. She ate a variety of fruit and veg throughout the week.
Parsnip was a popular vegetable for this student.
We really enjoyed the 2023 project. Thank you
Incredible Edibles Project 2022
Task 1
Food Origin:
On the 6th of April, 2022, Mr. Dowd, organised a trip for us to a local farm. Farmer Charlie and his wife Pauline were so kind to us. Farmer Charlie, spoke to us about his friesian cows. These are the cows that supply us with milk and milk products.
Here Farmer Charlie is showing us the inside of the milk parlour.
These are the feeders that the farmer fills will nuts for the cows to eat while they are being milked.
This is the machine used to put on the cows udders in order to milk the cow.
The milk is stored in this cooler for a few days before the milk lorry comes and takes it away. The milk has to be stored as a certain temperature.
We had a fantastic day out and loved looking at all the big machinery.
We got a spin in the Quad trailer around the farm.
Here are some of this year's new born calves.
Afterwards, Farmer Pauline gave us some delicious treats to eat!
The spin we got in the trailer attached to the quad was simply the best!!
Listening , intently to farmer McCormack on zoom.
On the 27th of April, we tuned into the zoom a farmer lesson with Mr. McCormack from Co. Meath. We loved hearing about all of the plants that he grows. We found it interesting to know that spinach and coriander leaves are reasonably easy to grow in Irish climate but that Basil is much more difficult. We also didn't realise the damage that a shower of hailstones can do to a crop of leaves.
They had lots of fun searching for the hungry caterpillars who were trying to eat the fresh carrots.
The children designed their own unique super hero.
Here is Beth the Beetroot, doesn't she look great!
George drew a really cool Potato Superhero. He keeps the bad bugs away from the potatoes!
Three of the foods Matthew found in his press at home came from Ireland. He wasn't surprized to find out that the Pizza in his Freezer was from Italy!
Fionn loved this activity. He found Oatcakes from Scotland and he was born in Scotland - he was very happy with his fine!
Most of Ava's food came from Ireland. Ava's Mom told her how she likes to support Irish, because it helps to keep Irish people in jobs.Her Bananas came from Africa and her Kiwi was from New Zealand.
Caoimhe loves Ketchup and she found out that her Ketchup comes from England.
Sadhbh found all Irish foods in her press at home. That is really great for Irish jobs. We will have to try to look out for more Irish foods just like Sadhbh.
Chloe, Ava and Emily sent in some photographs of their farm. Below are a selection of them.
Most of Ava's food came from Ireland. Ava's Mom told her how she likes to support Irish, because it helps to keep Irish people in jobs.
Her Bananas came from Africa and her Kiwi was from New Zealand. This is Daisy Chloe, Ava and Emily's new baby lamb.
Here Chloe, in the Mickey Mouse hat, is helping her Dad and neighbour to pull the new born lamb called Lucy.
Chloe loves the sheep and lambs. She might even be a farmer when she is older.
This is Lucy and her twin sister Poppy!
Here are the girls with their younger brother climbing bales!!! It is so much fun.
Farming is fun.
Task 2
Identifying Irish:
The children really enjoyed learning all about food origin. The children worked in small groups discussing climate factors and product locations. It was great to see that a lot of the food packages brought in from home were actually from Irish farms.
Carrots, broccoli, blueberries, pears and apples can all be grown in Ireland. We need to import bananas, grapes and pineapples from warmer countries.
The 1st class girls really enjoyed working on this activity.
Mixed leaves from Williamstown, Co. Galway.
Beef with the Bord Bia Quality mark
Green Grapes from South Africa.
Task 3
Growing:
March 2022
March the 1st, 2022, was a very exciting day for us. We received our plants, trowel and compost in the post. Mrs. Connolly opened the box and we were so happy to see strawberry and potato plants. Chives, carrots, lettuce, turnip and spinach seeds. It was such an exciting day for us.
Conan and Eoghan had great fun getting the compost from the bag and using it to plant the potatoes.
We didn't know that you actually plant baby potatoes in order to grow 'big' potatoes.
We really enjoyed getting our hands dirty while planting.
Later, in the month, a second delivery arrived to our school. This time we received a package from the 'big grow' company.
We were really happy because not only did we get more spinach seeds but we also got, beetroot, pea shoots, salad leaves and radish to plant and grow.
Beth and Chloe watch on as Ryan demonstrates how much water is required for their seeds.
Mrs. Brandon and Ms. Morgan's Students prepared the polytunnel for planting. They had a lot of work to do, they had to clear away all of the growth from last year and refill the planting sections with fresh soil and compost. 
Ryan loved the idea of bringing in his wellies to school to help the older boys prepare the polytunnel. Well done Ryan.
Ryan loved the idea of bringing in his wellies to school to help the older boys prepare the polytunnel. Well done Ryan.
Callum and Oisín are busy making drills.
We made special signs to put in the polytunnel to help us identify the plants when they started to grow.
Carrot seeds planted - check.
April 2022
In April, six weeks after our seeds were planted out, we returned to school following our Easter break and were happy to discover that our plants had all continued to grow.
Here are some pictures showing just how well they are doing.
We can't wait to taste this lettuce
The Beetroot has started to grow some purple leaves.
The delicious radishes
The pea shouts
Look at all the leaves on our potato plant.
Our Strawberry plant has started to grow beautiful flowers.
Onion sets
Tomato plants
May 2022
The tomato plants are growing nicely.
The children have started to pull the lettuce and eat it. They have brought some home to add to their sandwiches also.
We are really excited about how well the beetroot is growing.
There are lots of strawberries forming on Saoirse our plant! We can't wait until they turn red and are ripe to eat.
It is clear to see that our carrots are growing really well also.
The children love to spend a large portion of their breaks in the polytunnel. They use this time to water the plants and to weed out any unwanted weeds that have sprouted up. They love to watch how the plants continue to grow.
From time to time we allow our hens 'clucky' and 'nugget' to forage in the polytunnel. This is a natural way of ridding the polytunnel of insects, slugs and worms that love to feed on our delicious plants. The children learn a great deal about the circle of life and the hierarchy of animals.
Here the girls are very busy pulling weeds.
Conan is watering the plants.
Cameron really enjoys keeping the polytunnel clear from weeds.
Task 4
Preparing and Cooking - Life Skills
Here we see, Phoebe using up some left over Potatoes to make Potato cakes. Yummy
We looked at the videos on the Incredible Edibles Website and were inspired to make our own fruit skewers using some fruit provided by carambola our lunch providers.
Be careful with the skewers.
Emily got her skewer finished first!
Here Phoebe is making a fruit and vegetable smoothie.
Yummy, Phoebe loved her smoothie and makes one every week now.
Chloe, Emily and Ava made some delicious pineapple trees in their house. Nearly too good to eat! The colours of the fruit is very attractive.
Task 5
Healthy Eating
The children are deciding which food group the foods on the list belong too. They know to eat large portions of fruit and vegetables and carbohydrates and only small quantities of sugary foods such as chocolate, crisps and ice - cream.
In the three photographs below we see how Iarla has asked his Parent's to help him to plant and grow seeds at home.
Iarla can't wait for the beetroot to grow as he wants to bake some beetroot buns with his Mom.
Iarla has also planted some Sunflower seeds.
In the pictures above the children are planting wildflower seeds. We have been learning about the importance of bees and butterflies in the conservation of our plants and wildlife so we decided to plant the wildflower seeds for the bees to enjoy.
The children really enjoyed attempted to eat a rainbow of colours during healthy eating week. The task was harder than they had thought it was going to be!
Children enjoyed a selection of fruit and vegetables including, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, oranges, carrots, beetroot, lettuce, turnip, broccoli, potato and spinach.
Aran ate four portions of fruit and veg each day. This is very good for his young age, 5. He is going to work o increasing this to 5 portions a day for the next number of weeks.
From this chart, we can see how he has increased his consumption of one portion of potatoes to three portions of carrot, potato and broccoli by Saturday. Wow, Owen that is just brilliant. Hopefully Owen will continue to increase his fruit and vegetable consumption, now that he is enjoying them.
The Senior classes took part in the An Taisce Spring Clean initiative to help keep our local community litter free.
Food Dudes
We really loved getting involved with the Incredible Edibles Project. We learned loads about healthy eating, food origin, life on a farm and so much more.
So when Food Dudes contacted us to see if we would like to take part in their programme we were very excited.
The project will start for us on Friday May 27th and we cannot wait to taste all of the fresh food and veg.
This is a copy of the sample schedule we will be following.
Here is a photo of the sample foods we will be tasting.
Here is a picture of our Incredible Edibles notice board at school. The students will continue to bring in food packages and other food related items and we will discuss whether the food is a processed or unprocessed food. We will also discuss where the food belongs on the food pyramid.
We really enjoyed the 2022 project. Thank you.
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