Sorting

The Junior Infants have settled in so well to big school and have adapted so well to their new routine. They are enjoying learning lots of new things. Look how well they can already sort groups of things in our classroom!

All About Me

Junior Infants are very proud to share their first art project with you all. We are learning all about ourselves this month and so we made our faces on paper plates. We looked at the colour of our eyes, the colour and style of our hair and most importantly, how we are all different!

1st Day of School

All the teachers and staff are delighted to welcome our new Junior Infants to school this year! They have all come to school with big smiles on their faces.

Graduation 2020

Last Friday, Nun’s Cross NS bid farewell to 6th class of 2020 through our virtual Graduation ceremony which was a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish. We were joined by staff, parents and students from other classes along with Reverend Rue in wishing them the very best of luck as they move on to secondary school. There was a great sense of being together though far apart as our whole school community came together in wishing the young ladies and gentlemen well. The class of 2020 will go down in history in Nuns Cross NS.

Video courtesy of www.hippyandbloom.ie

Covid-19 going down in history

This week 5th and 6th class were set the challenge of designing a history chapter documenting Covid-19 which could appear in a text book for senior primary school pupils. Take a look at one of our outstanding efforts below.

Amber Flag Award

We are delighted to announce that Nun’s Cross have been awarded their very first Amber Flag award. This award is presented to schools who make a conscious effort to promote and improve the well-being and mental health of their school community.

Nun’s Cross began the process at the beginning of the academic year and began by setting up an Amber Flag committee made up with a selection of students from each of the classes from 2nd-6th. The students who felt they could make a contribution to this area submitted an application and from these, 6 students were chosen.

Together with the leading teacher, Mrs Gannon, the committee worked hard throughout the year to make positive changes and to co-ordinate events to promote positive mental health and well-being in our students, teachers, and parents.

They introduced ‘Worry Boxes’ to each classroom to help children who have worries and who may not be able to verbalise these to have a way to talk to an adult who can help.

The committee also coordinated a Well-Being week where the school dedicated more time each day to positive well-being. Some activities that the classes did were meditation, mindful colouring, mindful homework activities in place of regular homework, extra relaxing time including reading, listening to music etc, each class took part in yoga or Pilates, we held a fundraiser for Pieta house and designed well-being posters to display around the school.

With thanks to Saint Patrick’s Mental Health Services and also thanks to our PTA for hosting, we had a parents evening event to help educate our school community on children’s mental Health and well-being.

Of course we had lots more planned for this year that unfortunately had to be cut short but we will pick up where we left off as soon as we get back to school.

The committee would like to thank all the students, teachers and parents for all their help in our mission to gain our first Amber flag for Nun’s Cross. Also a big thank you to Pieta House for recognising all our hard work and for all the hard work they do to help people who need their support!

“Dear Amber Flag Committee in Nun’s Cross National School,

We, at Pieta, are delighted to inform you that your school has been awarded with the Amber Flag! 😊

We would like to thank the Amber Flag Committee for their commitment and dedication to promoting Positive Mental Health in your school this year. As you know in order to receive a Pieta Amber Flag you have to set and achieve goals throughout the year and our team found your application to be an outstanding initiative promoting positive mental health. We are truly overwhelmed with the amazing initiatives being run in schools this year. You are all a credit to your school.

We know how difficult the last few months have been and we are so thankful that you were able to achieve your goals either in person or “virtually”. We understand it’s been a trying time for the Amber Flag Committee but we hope that you can look back on your achievements throughout the year and be grateful of the time you spent together and the goals you’ve accomplished! Don’t underestimate the positive impact that your work has had this year. We, here at Pieta, certainly don’t.
We are hoping to send the physical flags once we get back from working remotely, hopefully this will be in September so thank you for your understanding.

Again, well done to all of you. Pieta’s Amber Flag Team hope that you are proud of all your accomplishments this year, especially in spite of the current situation. We certainly are!

Kindest regards,

The Pieta Amber Flag Team”

Newton’s cradle

In 5th and 6th class this week we were tasked with designing and making a Newtons Cradle which demonstrates the conservation of momentum and energy.

A Virtual Visit From The Gardaí

The Junior Infants are learning their topic of Emergency Helpers this month!

So far we have learned about the ambulance service, the fire service and this week we have been looking at the job of the Gardaí. The children have been busy working all week on their own little projects which included visits to local Garda stations, drawing pictures, role playing, making Lego figures around our topic and reading stories about what its like to be a Garda.

Today we had some very special visitors to our virtual classroom. Many thanks to Garda Brian and Garda Martin for the time they gave to the children to help them learn about the job they do. They gave the children lovely compliments on the work they have done, showed them their cool equipment and uniform and they were able to answer all of the children’s questions.

Addition Machines

Junior Infants are very busy this week as they are beginning to start addition sums. To help us with this task we have engaged our creative sides and have been busy making addition machines to help us have a visual representation of the process. Our machines help us to see that if we add a group of objects in one side and another set in the other side, they form one bigger group which is the two sets combined. Well done to all the junior infants for their creative work!

Junior Infants Distance Learning

We may not be in school at the moment but the Junior Infants are showing how much they love school with all the work they are busy doing at home. They are working so hard, and still having lots of fun in the good weather and I am very proud! The children are still learning their sounds, tricky words, working on their maths and have even started a new topic learning all about our community and our wonderful emergency services.

The children are celebrating birthdays, climbing trees, using their imagination, getting lots of fresh air and helping out at home too!

Well done to all the boys and girls - keep up all your great work and I will see you very soon!

“We have been working really hard, and making really cool games to help, learning our tricky words!”

“We are getting loads of practice of reading and writing our cvc words”

“Of course the school work is important, but so it playing outside and celebrating our birthdays! ”

“We are all learning about our community and our emergency services work very hard to help us! ”

1st Class Science Experiments

First Class are learning about Heat this month. We are having lots of fun exploring its properties and here is an example of how one of our students got on with one of her experiments. Well done!

Learning at home

Since our school closed on the 12th of March, teaching and learning has been drastically changed. Children have been engaging with their learning from a distance, with the support of their parents. We, as teachers, have been blown away by the fantastic projects, stories and pictures which have been sent to us over the past number of weeks. So here is a little sneak peak at some of the wonderful work we have received.

Crazy critters

A Junior Entrepreneur creation

“These crazy critters were created by first cutting some felt, sewing three sides, packing with stuffing and then sewing the final side. Then they were decorated. They are intended to be used as a sensory comforter or stress reliever”

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“We have been doing lots of STEM activities at home. The challenge here was to design and make a solar oven. This solar oven was used to melt chocolate for making Krispie buns.”

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“This is a picture I drew for an art competition in the Irish Times last week, where you were asked to draw a picture of what you have been doing or how you have been feeling during ‘Stay at Home’ time.

I have drawn ‘Home School’ and catching up with school friends on Zoom, baking, gardening and Easter fun that included an Easter Egg Hunt 🐣 🐰 The rainbow and heart are for love and hope 💓!
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“Report I wrote about my favourite movie through Irish.”

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“Focusing on Ancient Greece and trying to be as creative as possible.”

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Design and make a wind turbine

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Design and make a waterwheel

Eason Spelling Bee

Today 5th and 6th class participated in the Eason Spelling Bee competition in our class. We were given a list of spellings across two rounds and we found our successful speller who beat off some very tough competition to progress to the Wicklow finals.

The Eason Spelling Bee provides the opportunity for students across Ireland to get off their devices, improve their spelling skills, make new friends and develop their vocabulary.

Portraits in 5th and 6th

Today 5th and 6th class completed some portraits where they were challenged to sketch some larger than life selfies, and then paint over them using only black paint. We found it difficult to use only the black paint but we quickly realised some useful techniques for making the most of the single colour of paint. Take a look at some of our efforts below:

Seachtain na Gaeilge

Yesterday, as part of the Seachtain na Gaeilge celebrations 5th and 6th class took part in a tráth na gceist. Check put some of the pictures below.

Wicklow Enterprise Centre

This afternoon 5th and 6th class were visited by a lady from the Wicklow Enterprise Centre. This visit was scheduled to prepare us for our work ahead as we participate in the Junior Entrepreneur Programme. It really got us thinking about some vital questions which need to be considered and explored over the coming weeks as we prepare our pitches for the Dragons Den in school. We were interested to learn many tips which we were being given as budding entrepreneurs. These included:

1. Solve a problem, help out in some way

2. Market research

3. Identify a target market

4. Building a team which holds many skills and talents

5. Learning from others

6. Taking baby steps - not to go too big

7. Decide on practical measures - who, where, what, how, why?

SPAR 5s Soccer

Today we had 6 teams representing the school in the SPAR 5s , a soccer tournament which took place in Greystones. A maximum of 8 players were registered for each squad, with five players on the pitch for each game. Our six teams comprised of the following; 6th class girls, 6th class boys, 4th/5th class boys, 5th class girls, 4th class boys, 4th class girls. The teams all played between 4-5 matches each, on different pitches and keenly supported other teams when they were on a break. All teams put in a tremendous days work, with our 6th class boys and our 4th class boys narrowly missing out on progressing in the competition. A great day was had by all!

The Life Cycle Of A Butterfly

We hit new excitement levels in Junior Infants today as the children were introduced to real live caterpillars in their classroom. We are so excited to have the opportunity to watch these caterpillars transform into real butterflies right before our eyes. We will keep a close eye on them every day and we cant wait to be able to release butterflies into our school garden!

World Book Day in Junior Infants

The Junior Infants had so much fun for World Book Day today. We had a variety of stories linked to our spring time theme and we had a story session with our big buddies. We brought in a book we have enjoyed from home and did a book swap with our friends which means we all went home with a new book to read and passed a book on to someone else to enjoy like we did. Some of us dressed up as book characters and we finished the day with a presentation of our Write-A-Books and celebrated all of our achievements. We have all gone home with our World Book Day token and cant wait to trade them in for a new book from the book shop really soon!