The Junior Infants have begun the very exciting topic of Space for the month of October. They are exploring the concepts of light and dark, shadows, colours, planets stars and even aliens! We are working hard on working together and our space jigsaws are the perfect activity to encourage team work. We are creating some very creative space pictures. Our imagination knows no bounds in our moon setting small world area and we forget we are not really in space when we dress up as astronauts in our role play area. Take a look at some of the very exciting Aistear activities so far!
Skipping Workshop
All the children had a very special workshop today delivered to them by Mark from Skipnrope.ie. Mark is an expert in all things skipping and all classes got the change to have a full skipping lesson where they were shown some skipping skills and learned new tricks. Skipping is a fundamental movement skill that is very difficult for some children to master so we were delighted that Mark could come in and teach us some new tricks.
Some of the skills the children got to learn and practice were jumping jack skips, shuffling feet forwards and backwards while skipping, skipping on one foot, swinging the rope to the left, the right and then jumping through, criss crossing arms/rope and jumping in between, double unders and the very difficult butterfly/chain skip.
All the children gathered at the end of the day to show of the things that had learned and got to demonstrate their new skills to the rest of the school! We look forward to seeing the children put their new skills into practice over the coming year!
Pencil control skills
The Junior Infants have been working hard on improving their pencil control skills all month. We have been writing on everything we can from paper to plastic wallets, laminated posters and blackboards. We have used all sorts of writing implements from crayons and pencils to pens and paint! Today we explored a new way of writing by using a stylus pen on the iPads to follow prewriting patterns and the children got great enjoyment out of the special effects that they could create!
10 Ways to help pollinators
All classes were visited by two very responsible students who attended the Bee Festival in Ashford this weekend. They took some information leaflets for our school and gave a very informative talk on how we can all do our bit to help pollinators in our environment. There are some very easy ways in which we can all do our bit to help - how will you help?
Green Schools
Sorting in Junior Infants
The Junior Infants are busy learning all about sorting objects according to a variety of properties. Today we worked in small groups to sort a selection of things.
We then looked around the classroom taking note of how the other groups of items in our room had been sorted and we were able to work together to think of even more creative ways the objects we used could have been sorted!
5th and 6th girls GAA tournament
On Thursday the 19th of September all 14 of our 5th and 6th class girls headed off to Bray Emmets to represent Nuns Cross in a GAA tournament. We had an amazing day. We had been training really hard for the last 2 weeks and our hard work was needed on the day as we had no substitutes. We played 4 matches.Our first match was against St.Fergals of Bray we won 3-1.Our next match was Kilmacanogue 1 we did really well and we won 8-3. In our final two matches we played Moneystown NS and Kilmacanogue 2, both of which we lost narrowly. We were so proud of all of our team members and especially how hard we all worked. We would like to say a huge thanks to the parents who kindly volunteered to drive us to Bray and back.
STEM Challenge in 5th and 6th class
After School Clubs in Nuns Cross NS 2019-2020
See below the afterschool clubs available in our school this year.
We are lucky to have such an abundance of opportunity present in our school to allow students to excel in a wide range of areas.
Gymboree
The Junior Infants were spoilt with a visit from Rachel and Gymbo who came in to do a Gymboree session with the children. It was thoroughly enjoy by all! They enjoyed lots of music, games, bubbles and playing with the parachute.
Gymboree will be available for infants after school on Tuesdays from 1:50-2:50, for more information contact Rachel whose number you can request from the office.
1st Days Of Big School
The boys and girls of our new Junior Infants have settled in so well to their new routine. They are enjoying making new friends and learning lots of new things. Here are some pictures of their first few days and we even made it into the Wicklow People!
Self-portraits in 5th and 6th class
Today we went big in 5th and 6th class. We created larger than life self-portraits. Take a look at our creations below…
STEM Paper Challenge Number 1 in 5th and 6th class
Every Friday this year in 5th and 6th class we will complete a STEM challenge. This week, we took on the challenge of designing and making basketball stand which will hold a basketball as high off the ground as possible, using only paper and sticky tape. A fair test was designed where stands would be placed on the even floor at the front of the classroom. We also agreed that a 5 second holding rule applied for entries to be validated as fitting their purpose. Groups were given 20 minutes to complete this challenge.
Take a look at some of the interesting creations below…
In our classroom, our early finishers area contains an extension of this activity for the coming week. Alternative STEM challenges will also be provided in this area to challenge students who wish to take on additional challenges without having other models to base their designs off.
Healthy Lunchbox Guide by Foundation Health
In need of some ideas on how to fill your child’s lunchbox? Be inspired by checking out our wonderfully yummy lunchbox ideas as provided by one of our fantastic parents. You will find this on our parents page.
World Book Day in Nuns Cross N.S.
Balloon Cars
During the week we were designing and making balloon powered cars with the help of a past pupil of the school. Each of the children made their car using a plastic bottle, a balloon, straws, bottle lids and skewers. We had great fun trying them out in the classroom.
Our Humpty Dumpty Challenge
This week in Junior Infants we did a number of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths activities from our class wonder wall.
On Monday the children completed the Humpty Dumpty challenge. They were tasked with designing a protective device to take Humpty Dumpty (or in this case some hard boiled eggs) safely to the ground without it cracking.
First of all we discussed how we could protect the eggs. We talked about the materials we might use.
We then designed a fair test, with the eggs all being dropped from an agreed height which was the same for each group.
Each group then worked together to sketch their designs and to formulate a plan.
Groups used a variety of materials to protect their eggs and when time was up we all predicted what the outcomes would be. Cracked or not cracked.
Our results were that two groups had eggs which cracked and three groups had eggs which did not crack. It was a very enjoyable activity.
Designer Minds Workshop
Today the children from 1st-6th class had a visit from a facilitator from Designer Minds to do a STEAM workshop with the children. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, art and maths.
Today’s workshop focused on engineering and the children were set a challenge to build a town or city in groups. The children had to work together and think about what buildings they would need in their city, what facilities they needed to provide and had to give serious consideration to their design. They created some really impressive cities!
For anyone who is interested, Designer Minds will be running summer courses in Wicklow town and you can find more information on their website by clicking here
We Reached 1,000,000!!!
Well done to all the children for taking part in the Million Step Challenge. We had a harder task this year with only having a 4 day week but the children really stepped it up over the 4 days and we reached a very impressive 1,192,269 steps!
New sports equipment
There was great excitement today as our new sports equipment arrived. The children worked really hard to put it altogether and are delighted with the new range of activities we will be able to do. A big thanks again to all the children and parents for supporting our Race To Galway which enabled us to invest in all the new equipment
We invested in a new pair pf portable goal posts, a 9ft net which can serve as a tennis net, badminton net and volley ball net, a set of 40 rubber spot markers, a target goal net, a new net for our current basket ball hoop and a new basket ball hoop to complete the basket ball court.
No Lunch Box Day
No Lunch Box Day Was a huge success this year. 6th class would like to give a huge thanks to everyone who made it happen. To the parents who donated supplies and the children who bought our lunches. We raised €440 and we are so excited to plan our 6th class day out!
