Junior Infants Emergency Trip

Continuing their emergency theme, the junior infants took a trip to the fire station and the RNLI lifeboat station where they were treated to a full tour and had all their questions answered.

First stop was the fire station where we met firemen Ian and Joe! Ian and Joe gave us a full tour from what happens when their bleeper goes off to alert them to a call, how they know where to go and the uniform they have to wear to keep them safe while fighting fires. We got to try some of the uniform on and were amazed at how heavy (and slightly stinky) all the equipment is!

Next, we went to see the huge engines!!! There were two engines in the stations and Ian explained that one is a general fire engine while the second engine is a snorkel - an engine which has a huge ladder and cage on the back that they only use for fighting fires that are really high up.

We then had a tour of the fire engine and couldn’t believe the vast amount of equipment stored on board. They carry all sorts of machinery to help if someone is stuck in a car that has been involved in a crash, as well as all the things they need for a variety of different fires.

We were beside ourselves when the firemen said we could actually get into the fire truck! It was so big that we needed some adults to help us climb in and out - it was really high up!

As if that wasn’t exciting enough, we then got to use the real fire fighting hoses! They are very strong, far too strong for junior infants even though they were on low power, so to make sure we were safe fireman Joe helped us! It was so much fun!

We got to take home some fridge magnets and saving boxes too! We also had the opportunity to give Joe and Ian some thank you cards we had made for the fire service! We know what an important job they do helping to keep us safe and its important to thank them for their service to our community.

We set off on the next leg of our adventure and stopped at the play park on the way!

We also managed to squeeze in a quick hot chocolate treat before getting to our last stop!

Next up was the RNLI lifeboat station! But before we got there we saw the all weather boat which is docked on the quay because its too big for the station house! We took some time for lunch on the black castle and had so much fun rolling around the grass and climbing on the anchors!

We went for our tour in the lifeboat house and John, Carol, Andrew and the team gave us a demonstration of their equipment. We got to see amazing videos of real life rescues they have taken part in recently and gave us tips on how to stay safe in the water.

The crew brought us to the in shore boat and we all got to climb on board! The life boat crew are volunteers who all work very hard, day and night, to make sure that all who use the water are safe! We were delighted to be able to acknowledge their brave work by giving them thank you cards we made for them. As this voluntary organisation relies heavily on donations to fund their work, the families in Junior infants all clubbed together and raised an amazingly generous €180 which was presented to the crew from Nun’s Cross National School Junior Infants.

We had an absolutely fantastic day out and we are so grateful to all our emergency services for all they bravely do to keep us all safe!

Ambulance Visit to Junior Infants

The Junior Infants in Nun’s Cross were very excited recently to have a visit from a local paramedic to chat to them about being a paramedic and how they help people in our community. The children are learning about the emergency services and we were delighted with the chance to bring our learning to life!

Paramedic Sean came to our school and showed us his uniform so we can identify paramedics when we see them in our community. We had a chance to see inside the ambulance and learn about some of the equipment they use.

We got to turn on the lights and hear the sirens too! It was such a fantastic visit and we are very thankful to all the paramedics who help us when we need it! We made some thank you cards for Seán to pass on to the rest of the crew in the ambulance base!

The Solar System in 4th & 5th class

4th and 5th Class have been learning all about The Solar System this term. They have been working hard creating projects to showcase their knowledge about the planets.

February in Senior Infants

Senior Infants had a busy month in February learning all about the weather. We even got to record ourselves being weather reporters. We had Darren for Gaa and we are improving each week. We got to celebrate St. Brigid’s day and Valentines Day too.

Here are the girls practising their Gaa. We all love Gaa with Darren so much fun :)

In Aistear we got to pretend we were Weather Broadcasters - East Coast FM must be listened to a lot in the cars, as it was mentioned all the time.

We also celebrated St. Brigid’s Day. For church service we made our own cloak. full of colours and patterns.

Can you believe Senior Infants painted these gorgeous hearts for Valentines Day. They look like they should be in an art gallery.

Spring in Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have sprung into spring!

We are very excited to learn about a wide range of spring topics over the next few weeks! Take a look at what is on the agenda!

We will be learning about the life cycle of a frog! We are so lucky to have a pond in our school which is a habitat for some local frogs! There is already frog spawn in it and we will be tracking the life cycle of a frog as well as exploring our play pond in our class! We also have lots of lovely books to help us with our learning!

We will be exploring soil this month and looking at why its important, what its used for and the insects and animals that use the soil to survive.

We are looking forward to exploring flowers and seeing how they grow. We will be examining hyacinths to see the different parts of flowers and also planting some sunflowers to help us learn how to help plants grow!

We will also be having lots of spring time fun in Aistear with our flower shop roleplay area, or small world play, our messy play, mallable play and our creative station!

World Book Day with Junior Infants

The junior infants celebrated World Book day with fantastic costumes and wonderful books!

We had some time to read our stories with our big buddies and we also took some time to read with each other too!

The Jungle

Junior Infants have gone to the jungle for the month of February and they had so much fun exploring this new world!

We read lots of books all about the jungle and the animals that live there. We loved learning about lots of different animals and the snake was a firm favorite. We learned about lots of different types of snakes and do you know that if we line up one behind the other we can stretch to 9 meters which is the same length as the green anaconda? That’s the longest snake in the world and they live in the jungle!

Junior Infants worked really hard to complete this shared writing piece on some to share some of the information we learned about snakes!

We created a jungle safari sociodramatic play area in our classroom and we used this area to explore what it might be like to go on a safari through the jungle. We needed a safari driver and tour guide, a ticket sales person and of course lots of keen tourists to go on the adventures. We were busy animal spotting, taking pictures and creating all sorts of adventures in our imagination.

We looked at the different layers of the jungle and the animals that live in some of the different parts! Did you know that there are four layers to the jungle?

We turned the area outside our classroom into a jungle, complete with our paper snakes and some of our work!

We explored clay as part of our art this month and, because we loved snakes so much, we used this opportunity to make our own snakes from clay! We had to role them, shape them, let them dry and then paint them! Luckily they are very friendly and don’t bite!

The Dentist

Junior Infants were learning all about looking after ourselves for the month of January and a huge part of looking after ourselves when we are in Junior Infants is looking after our teeth. We are old enough now to do this self care task ourselves and we learned all about our teeth, how important they are and how we can look after them.

We also learned all about the dentist. We explored what the job of a dentist involves and how they have an important role to play in helping us to care for our teeth. We had so much fun learning all about dental nurses, dentists, waiting rooms, receptions, dental surgeries, x-rays, and more in our dentist sociodramatic play area!

Well Being Week

Nun’s Cross recently celebrated our annual Well-Being Week. This is a very special week in our annual calendar where we focus on a variety of areas that help our overall wellbeing. From mindfulness to looking after our bodies, helping in our community, and reducing our time on screens we had activities across the school to cover it all.

This year, the children also got a chance to explore some hidden talents, and skills or discover new hobbies through a genius hour we organised. Each teacher organised a club that explored a new interest the children may not have considered exploring, taught a new skill, or allowed a space for the children’s talents to be encouraged. The children had an opportunity to take part in two clubs out of a wide variety of choices from fashion design to dance, marbles, cooperative games, drama, jewellery making, minibeast adventures, and more. It was a great week and was enjoyed by the whole school community!

Cross Country Mile Challenge in Avondale

Today 58 pupils from 3rd - 6th class represented Nuns Cross in the Mile Challenge at Avondale. The children all ran excellently and enjoyed a fantastic day out.

Minibeast Hunting in 1st class

Today 1st class made the most of the weather and got outside to do some minibeast hunting. The children worked in groups to see if there were any spiders, insects or other creepy crawlies on the school grounds. We used magnifying glasses to find the minibeasts, the best place we found was under rocks and pieces of wood. We used pooters and magnifying pots to collect them. It was great fun! We collected so many worms, woodlice, millipedes (these were really really fast!), centipedes, spiders, ants and ladybirds. We then gave them some food in the form of leaves and places to hide under rocks and soil. Take a look at our pictures below.

With the help of the magnifying boxes, we were able to view our minibeasts in great detail. When we got back into the class we viewed what we had collected and drew some really detailed pictures before releasing them back into nature again.

6th Class Australia Projects

During the month of January, 6th class were very busy learning all about Australia.

In pairs, or individually, the children created projects based on their chosen territories. Some of the children decided to create PowerPoints, while others went for posters or comic strips.

Below are some of the incredible projects created by the class. We hope you enjoy.

Queensland by Chloe & Addison

Tasmania by Brooke & Erin

Queensland by Carrie

New South Wales by Joe & Sam

New South Wales by Meghan & Eliza

Northern Territory by Hollyanne

Victoria by Nate & Aisling

Queensland by Holly

Queensland by Robert

New South Wales by Lucy

January in Senior Infants

For the month of January we have been learning all about Winter in senior infants.

It has been a busy month as we started Gaa. Here we are having fun with Darren

For aistear this month we got to make snow dough. We loved the smell in our classroom after making this.

We also got to experiment practicing our writing in shaving foam.

Leinster Schools Swimming Competition

At the weened Nun’s Cross was represented by two pupils in the Leinster Schools Swimming Competition at the National aquatic centre. Charlotte (5th class) and Isaac (2nd class) did an excellent job, both recording personal best times, Isaac in the backstroke and Charlotte in the Freestyle, Breaststroke and 100 Individual Medley. We are delighted to have found out that Charlotte has qualified for the National Swimming Competition in March in the Butterfly. Well done Charlotte, we are so proud of you!

Santa Dash in aid of Crumlin Children's Hospital

On Wednesday, our Active Committee organised a Santa Dash for the whole school to participate in. On this day we met down at the square in Ashford and registered to either run to school or walk to school. The children chose which dash they wanted to complete. The Active Committee contacted the Guards in Ashford and they kindly escorted us on our trip up to school. It was great to see such a great turn out, with lots of festive gear on show. We would like to say a huge thank you to all who came along on Wednesday morning, the parents who walked and ran along with us, the Gardaí who escorted us with their lights flashing and sirens blaring, to the parents who brought pupil’s school bags to the school and to everyone who donated to such a wonderful cause. We were delighted that we raised a whopping 470 euro. Take a look at some of our photos from the event below.

The Christmas Games

This week, all classes participated in the Nuns Cross Christmas Games which were organised by our wonderful Active Committee. The junior classes participated in a range of activities including ‘find the elf’ scavenger hunt, ‘North Pole, South Pole Santa’s Sleigh’, ‘How many days until Christmas Santa Claus?’, ‘Tinsel Tug of War’, ‘Snowman Bowling’ and ‘Santa’s Sack relay race’. These cleverly thought out names were Christmas versions of some of our favourite well-known games. The senior classes completed a different selection of games, including ‘Pull Santa’s Sleigh Race’, ‘Tinsel Tug of War’, ‘Holiday Caroling’ and ‘Snowman Dodgeball’. Check out some pictures of these fantastic events below.

Stop Motion with Create Schools

Today Ms Turner’s class were treated to a Stop Motion taster session with Peter. We had a fantastic day creating Lego Stop Motion videos. It was so interesting learning how to piece together different movements, a lot of thinking, patience and problem solving was needed. The children worked in groups using two characters, the Lego board and some blu tack. Take a look at some of their creations below…

The 3rd & 4th class Stop Motion production December 2022

Puppet Show

Today our Junior classes were treated to a puppet show performance which took place in the Junior Infant classroom. The children were introduced to Grandad, baby, red crayon, the wicked Witch of the West and Santa even paid a visit. It was a laugh a minute and the children got really involved in the performance. Once again we would like to say a huge thank you to our Super PTA who funded this visit. We had a really great day.

Ella Enchanted the Musical

Last week all of the pupils in 3rd - 6th classes attended Ella Enchanted the Musical in the Dominican in Wicklow Town. We were so delighted to be getting a bus for our big day out. The children brought some snacks with them which they could enjoy during the show.

We were overjoyed when we found out that we had the best seats in the house, sitting right up the front. The show lasted for 80 minutes in total, with a short break in the middle. The acting was excellent, we could not believe the amount of preparation which must have gone into putting the show together. Fantastic singing, stunning costumes and a wonderful story where Ella struggled with the gift of obedience which had been given to her by her fairy godmother. We were delighted that there was a happy ending to the story, with Ella falling in love with the prince and no longer having to be obedient. We learned that although obedience can be something very good at times, there are also times where obedience can be a dangerous and bad thing.

We would like to say a huge thank you to our wonderful PTA who kindly funded this trip for the children.

Christmas Trees by Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have been busy little workers this week making their own Christmas tree crafts to decorate our classroom for the festive season! Take a look at their creations!