6th Class STEM Treehouses

6th class were faced with the task of building treehouses last week. The children worked individually or in small groups and were tasked with building a miniature treehouse with access routes into and out of it. Once the outside structure was complete, the children were tasked with designing the interior.

The children designed their treehouses on blank paper initially and then began by using squared paper to create the floor plan for their treehouses. It was very interesting to see how each group approached the task, with some groups deciding to bring in materials from home to enhance their designs.

We ended up having cargo nets, ladders, ziplines and bridges and methods of entering and exiting the treehouses. Some treehouses featured furniture, with others including sky gardens.

Have a look at the process and some of our creations:

6th Class Podcasters

During the first term, 6th class have had the opportunity to learn podcasting skills from Peter as part of the Creative School’s programme. The children wrote an article with the guidance of Peter and then edited these to make them more suitable to be read as part of a podcast.

During the podcasting process, the children learned many different skills. They learned how to record their voices, ensuring that there voice waves remained within range; how to alter the tempo of their voice to ensure clarity when reading; how to add sound effects or music to the background of their podcast and add introductory and concluding jingles.

The children also had the opportunity to design their own artwork to match their podcast. We learned so many skills and look forward to having Peter come back to visit us later in the school year.

Viking Projects in 4th & 5th class

4th and 5th Class have been learning all about The Vikings this month. They have been working hard creating their own projects to showcase their knowledge. On Friday the pupils from 2nd - 6th classes were invited to view the projects in our room.

4th & 5th STEM

4 th and 5 th class had great fun developing their STEM skills with the Egg Drop Challenge. They had to create something that would allow their egg to drop out of the top floor window without breaking. They were allowed to use balloons, plastic cups, cupcake cases, paper, glue, tape, elastic bands, cardboard, string and bags.

Before they tested their creations, they made predictions about each one. It was hugely successful with only 3 eggs out of 10 breaking!

Nun's Cross Book Fair

The Nun’s Cross Book Fair was a very exciting event which we were delighted to have back after many years! The book trolleys were stocked to the brim with books for all ages and interests! There was something for everyone. Thank you to all who visited and supported the book fair this year. It raised a huge €1622! Of the money raised, the school was awarded 60%, equating to €973, to spend on new books for our class libraries. We can’t wait to get stuck into all our new wonderful books!

The stacks of new books we got from the fair for our class libraries

'Pumpkin Pizzas' in 3rd & 4th Class

Before Halloween, 3rd & 4th class had lots of fun making ‘pumpkin pizzas’. We added toppings to our pizza bases and carved pumpkin faces into wraps which were added on top. We were very proud of how our creations turned out. They were really tasty too!

The Stone Age in 3rd & 4th Class

In 3rd and 4th class we recently learned about the Stone Age. We found this topic very interesting and have learned lots of new facts!

While learning about the Neolithic Age, we were particularly interested in the Céide Fields in County Mayo and we were then inspired to construct our own round houses.

First, we went outside to gather leaves and twigs for our roofs. Some of us also chose to use brown fabric. We felt that the fabric looked like animal skins, that may have been used to insulate houses during the Stone Age.

Next, we proceeded to make a cone shape out of paper plates and we stuck the materials onto the plates to create the roofs of our Stone Age houses.

After that, we painted strips of card and drew a stone effect on the strips, once the paint had dried. We them measured our roofs and used these measurements to help us assemble our houses.  

We also created some Stone Age cave paintings of animals, that might have lived during the stone age.

Written by the children in 3rd and 4th class

Space in Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have blasted off into space for this month’s SESE topic!

We have a space station role-play area where the Junior astronauts can explore space, gather space rocks, learn how to fly a space ship and hopefully find some aliens! They have to be careful to complete their launch checklists before blasting off into the deep dark space, make sure they have their maps at hand, and keep observations of what they discover on each journey!

The classroom is a hive of activities where the children are making all sorts of space-themed creations from a variety of materials including malleable play and construction. We have lots of writing and drawing of space pictures, letters and postcards as well as lots of creative play in the moon landing small world tray and the moon sand tray!

We are a big fan of Jigsaws in Juniors too so this Space themed floor puzzle is a big hit with our current topic!

We have also made our own alien space ship drawings, which are on display outside our room, and I think you will all agree they are a very colourful sight!

M’Áit Cónaithe i rang a sé

I rang a sé, bhíomar ag obair ar an téama ‘mé féin’ agus an fo-théama ‘m’áit cónaithe’ I rang Gaeilge.

Nuair a d’fhoglaíomar foclóir bunaithe ar na háiseanna atá inár cheantar, rinneamar plean sráide. Tharraing na páistí sráideanna ón a intinn aibí. Ansin, tharraing siad áiseanna agus chuir siad lipéid ar.

Rinne péire amháin duine agus carr freisin. Is feidir le ‘Rochelle’ tiomáint ó áit go háit. Nuair a bhí Rochelle ag tiomáint, rinne an péire cur síos ar a bealach.

In 6th class, we were working on the theme ‘myself’ and subtheme ‘the area I live’ in irish.

When we learned vocabulary about the facilities in our locality, we made a street plan. The children drew streets from their imagination. Then, they drew the facilities and labelled them.

One pair made a person and a car too. ‘Rochelle’ can drive from one place to another. When she was driving, the pair described her journey.

Paper Sculptures

In 6th class we explored some of the different things that we can do with paper.

We discussed some of the different ways we could manipulate the same piece of paper to create interesting textures, designs or patterns.

Folding, twisting, rolling, ripping, scrunching and cutting were some of the techniques we discovered.

Once exploring these techniques, each of the children began experimenting with a selection of coloured strips in order to create their own sculpture.

Each sculpture was unique and could be easily identified by its creator. It was great to see how the children’s imaginations took this task in such a range of directions.

Halloween Disco 2022

We were absolutely thrilled to have our evening Halloween Disco back in action this year after we had to pause the annual highlight due to covid. It is safe to say that the whole school was buzzing with excitement to have it back and the school was fit to burst with all the people who attended!

We got the school into the Halloween spirit with a Spooktacular bake-off, which was judged by our student council. The baked goods were then sold on the night and there wasn’t a crumb of the creative bakes left! Congratulations to everyone who took part and created such amazing treats. Take a look at just some of the creations and see just how spooktacular they were!

We also had a tuck shop filled with treats for the children to buy on the night. We were so grateful to Big Mouth from Ashford Village who supplied us with a giant bag of popcorn and cones for the night! The bake sale and tuck shop had a continuous stream of customers all night. Many thanks to all who supported it and a bigger thank you to all who volunteered their time to help us man the stall.

The Halloween Disco had one of the biggest raffles ever, some might have called it a monster raffle! We had over 20 prizes for kids and adults! Vouchers, gifts, cuddly toys, and everything in between. A massive thank you to everyone who donated prizes and a special thanks to all the businesses who got in touch to donate vouchers - Foundation Health, Ashford Motor Repairs, Kidszone Wicklow, Big Mouth, Spotlight Studios and Choppers Barbers. The raffle was such a huge success that we even ran out of raffle tickets! Thank you to all who supported the raffle in any way!

We couldn’t have a Halloween disco without our nail bar and tattoo parlour! As always, all the children had great fun at these stations and had very glamorous nails and colourful tattoos by the end of the night! A big thank you to our past pupils who came back to help us out on the night with these activities - it is always lovely to have you back!

Our Halloween Disco would be nothing without our very own resident DJ, DJ Dave! Once again Dave had the school bopping from the minute the doors opened and the dance floor was never empty! Thank you to Dave for always being so generous with his time for our disco!

The costumes this year were absolutely frighteningly spectacular! Congratulations to all who got into the spirit, young and less young! It brought such a fantastic atmosphere to the night and added to fun of the disco! It was very difficult to choose a winner for best dressed and we hope you all enjoyed being in the Halloween spirit!

Our Halloween Disco raised a whopping €2600 this year and we are so grateful to everyone who supported the event. This year we put the children in the driving seat with the funds and each class has made a wish list of things they would love to have in the classrooms or in the school in general. All of the proceeds from the disco will go towards fulfilling as much of each class wish list as possible.

Girls GAA blitz in Aughrim

Last Thursday our 3rd and 4th class girls travelled to Aughrim where the took part in a 3rd and 4th class GAA participation blitz. They had a fantastic day out, playing 5 matches in all. It was great to see the girls soloing and handpassing with confidence. We are really looking forward to playing more matches in the future.

Exploring Trees Our School Playground

First class had lots of fun being nature detectives today. Using our leaf IDs we had to identify the different types of trees in our school playground. We found some Holly, Hawthorn, Field Maple, Oak, Beech, Birch and lots more different types of trees. We collected all the different types of leaves me found and then categorised them into two groups. Also, we even managed to find a little caterpillar crawling on the wall. It was lots of fun!

Welcome to Noun Town!

First class have been learning all about common and proper nouns with the help of Proper Pete and common cat. We decided to create a town full of our favourite nouns including Big Mouth, volcanoes, ballerinas, Hot Wheel cars, rainbows and much more! We are really proud of our Noun Town!

Harvest Festival

Nun’s Cross National School recently celebrated our annual Harvest service. A service where we give thanks for the harvest and all the work that farmers do for all of us. We enjoyed hearing stories from the Bible, listening to songs from various classes, the children shared stories and art work and Rev Rue gave a wonderful sermon.

In addition to our service, the children and families of our school very generously donated food supplies at our service. These food supplies have been distributed to families and households in need within our community with the help of Sean Olohan from the Wicklow Lions club and the Saint Vincent De Paul Charity. Our 6th class children worked very hard to parcel up the huge amount of food that was donated and had it ready for Sean to collect.

Our collection has benefited 12 adults and 13 children in our community so far, with some of the non perishable foods still left to be distributed in the near future. Saint Vincent De Paul said ‘This food has gone to help feed a number of families who we help every month or two. One family have very serious health problems, another is just struggling to manage on low income and contract work. A few households where there is a major struggle to stay afloat with the rising cost of heating and electricity have been so grateful for this donation which has made all the difference to them. Another family is struggling to pay a large amount for very regular hospital visits and this has been a great help’.

Thank you to all who contributed to this very special service, and thank you for making a real difference to the lives of so many families in our community.

Tag Rugby in Wicklow

Yesterday our 5th & 6th class pupils attended a tag rugby tournament hosted by our rugby coach Aidan in Wicklow Rugby Club. We had a fantastic day and learned lots of new skills. We were very fortunate to have a lovely sunny day for the tournament. We played against a number of different local teams including Holy Rosary, St. Patricks and Gaelscoil Gaelscoil Chill Mhantáin. There was great commitment and team effort demonstrated on the day, we are extremely proud of the boys and girls who represented the school so well. Take a look at some of the fun which was had.

First Aid Training

Today our three Senior classes and our staff took part in First Aid training run by FirstAidCoaching. There was great enthusiasm among staff and pupils as we learned about CPR, the use of the recovery position, choking, using an Epi-pen, head injuries and using the defibrilator. During the training, the pupils were encouraged to take notes, share their prior knowledge and experience in first aid. Some very interesting stories were shared by the pupils and the facilitator and there was ample opportunity for asking questions. The highlight of the day was definitely getting to do the practical work - trying the CPR on the mannequin and using the practice Epi-pen. After today we are all definitely more aware of what we need to do if someone has an allergic reaction or gets injured in school and out in the community.

Boys GAA Blitz in Ballinakill

Last week our 5th & 6th class boys GAA team took part in the South Wicklow Cumann na mBunscoil participation blitz. we had two teams representing us on the day and we were so proud of the boys for their wonderful performance on the day. We were especially proud of the boys who had never played GAA before this year. These boys were encouraged and supported in their preparation by their classmates. The blitz took place in Ballinakill Sports Complex, with each team facing five other teams on the day.

We look forward to our next day out which will be in March 2023.

Litter Bugs Wanted in 1st Class

Litterbugs watch out, first class are going to put a stop to your littering! We read the story book ‘Litterbug Doug’ by Ellie Bethel and we decided that we needed to take action like Michael Recycle to protect our wonderful planet. We designed some wanted posters to put an end to litterbugs polluting our oceans, forests, parks etc. We spoke about all the little things that we can do to protect our planet at school, at home and in our local communities.

Apple Picking with 6th Class

It has been a busy start to the year in 6th class. Apart from working very hard in the classroom, the children have also taken on a variety of jobs to help out around the school. We had noticed, since returning to school, that many of the apples on our apple trees were beginning to fall and were getting squashed. Some of our 6th class helpers spent some time picking and washing the ripe apples before distributing them to different classrooms.

It was a lovely treat getting to eat some of our own, school grown apples.