Phonological Awareness is key!

The Junior Infants in Nun’s Cross are working so hard at building their phonological awareness skills before we tart learning our Jolly Phonics.

So far we have mastered listing to a variety of sounds in our environment, hearing rhyme, producing rhyme, we can count syllables in words, we know when a word is big or small and can count syllables and we can even tell you what sound different words start with!

This week we are working on training our ears to hear sounds that come at the end of the word - not that is a tricky one but we are learning really fast!

Number Hunting In Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have started learning their numbers this week and we began with a number hunt around our classroom and our school garden! Its amazing how many numbers we found in our environment

Team Hope Christmas Shoebox Appeal

It has been tradition for Nuns Cross National School to support Team Hope in their Christmas Shoebox Appeal. This is an annual campaign where pupils of the school along with thousands of other individuals in Ireland donate shoeboxes filled with gifts to be given to children affected by poverty in Africa or Eastern Europe.  It is an opportunity to share a little joy and excitement with children who live in circumstances where these can sometimes be in short supply.

You can read their stories at www.TeamHope.ie.

This year due to the effects of Covid-19 restrictions things are a little different and the Christmas Shoebox Appeal has gone online. People are asked to donate 20 euro to make a shoebox. Every 20 euro donated will allow Team Hope’s partners in Africa and Eastern Europe to purchase items for shoeboxes locally, which will be packaged and delivered directly into the hands of children.

Parents can send donations in with their children in an envelope and there will be collection boxes in each class which Student Council are busy making.  Alternatively to make a virtual box of your own with your child you can visit www.TeamHope.ie at any time and choose the items you would like to add.  You can also upload a colouring page of your own with your donation to personalise your shoebox!

Today Student Council held a whole school zoom assembly to share the great work Team Hope do. They also taught us the 4 Ws they can include in their shoeboxes - something to Wash, something to Wear, something to Write on and something Wow! We were given a tour of the website and taken through the procedure of filling a shoebox. This was followed up with a question and answer session where pupils in all classes were given the opportunity to ask any burning questions they had.

Space Explorers In Junior Infants

The Junior Infants are exploring the topic of light and dark this month and their play topic is Space! There is a lot of fun going on that some might say is out of this world!

We created our very own rockets so that we can blast off in to outer space!

We have made our own alien play-doh!

We followed some tricky instructions and made some very impressive UFO and Alien pictures!

We have learned all about how shadows are formed and we had great fun exploring the shadows that our toys can make. We discovered that the shadow changes depending on where the light shines from. We traced around our toys shadows and tried to guess what toys matched each shadow

We have learned all about sources of light and where light comes from. Did you know that the moon is not a source of light, but that it just reflects the light from the sun? Look at all of the sources of light that we brainstormed together! We are a clever bunch!

Amber Flag Has Arrived!

We have been patiently waiting and our flag has finally arrived! We are delighted and cant wait to see it flying high outside our school!

STEM Challenge in 5th & 6th class

This week 5th & 6th class were tasked with making the longest possible paper chain using only one sheet of a4 paper and staples. There was great perseverance shown by the class and amazingly, the longest paper chain was over 7 and a half metres long. Very impressive work indeed!

Cricket with Jim

Today 3rd class were delighted to be commencing cricket training. Jim from Greystones will be working with us over the coming month as we learn the basics of the sport. Today we learned positions; wicket keeper, fielder, batsman and bowler. We learned to bat, bowl and to field. We had great fun learning cricket.

Running Club Returns

Running club has returned after mid-term and we are really enjoying it. On Tuesday 5th & 6th class complete their run, on Thursday 4th class run and on Friday 3rd class run. We meet at 8.30 and do a quick warm up. We find that the running in the mornings helps us to be more awake and alert for school. We are hopeful that athletics events will return in the new year and we are confident that our training will pay off for us. New members are welcome at any time.

6th class boys amusement

Take a look at our impressive challenge where we used the contents of our pencil cases to balance a ruler on a glue stick. I wonder can anyone else rise to this challenge?

Maths Week in 1st and 2nd Class

We had lots of fun celebrating Maths Week in 1st and 2nd class.

We were learning about shapes so were challenged to make human sized shapes using all of the people in our groups. It turns out that circles are tricky to make using bodies if you don’t want any corners.

Second class started to learn about square corners which are more commonly known as right angles. The children went on a square corner hunt around the classroom to see how many they could find.

We went on a shape hunt outside using our shape magnifying glasses. There are lots of circles and rectangles in the school grounds, but semicircles were a little trickier to find. Some very observant members of the class noticed that our neighbour, the highland cow, has a semicircular shaped nose.

We ended our week by creating some shape monsters. It was interesting to see how many corners and sides our monsters had, some even had square corners.

Active Schools GAA Training Day

Today the whole school participated in a GAA training day as organised by our Active Schools Committee. Having worked with Kevin our GAA coach since September, we were eager to test our skills and teamwork by having a training blitz. The junior end of the school played their matches at the school and our senior pupils made the trek down to the Ashford GAA grounds. We were absolutely blessed with such a wonderful day weatherwise, and the talent on show was top class.

Classes were each split into 4 teams and times were allocated for each match as decided by the Active Committee. We played across the main pitch where we were able to have 4 matches played at a time. Each team played every other team in their class and the winners after all of that competed in the finals.

We would like to say a huge THANK YOU to Kevin our coach and Brian and Vicky our referees on the day. The day was a tremendous success and has really inspired us to do days like this more often as a school. There was a great energy all day long and we are certain that the children will all sleep soundly tonight after their busy day. We look forward to getting our GAA goalposts in the school in the coming weeks so that we can practice a little more.

Maths Week in 3rd Class

During Maths Week, 3rd class were very busy solving riddles, using their ‘maths eyes’ to spot maths in the environment, participating in an ‘all about me’ maths activity, playing board games, making a ‘human clock’ outside and learning how to tell the time on an analogue clock. Well done everyone!

Maths Week in 5th and 6th Class

We had a great week celebrating Maths week in 5th and 6th Class. We developed our problem solving skills by creating mazes outside on the basketball court - most seemed ‘impossible’! We also explored Maths outside with lots of different Maths trails which provided so much learning. We developed codes using Caesar Cipher and tried to prove and disprove the theory of the Vitruvian Man. All while learning how to do long division in 5th Class. They deserve a medal! Well done to everyone!

Maths week in Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have been busy working on patterns for maths week this week.

We looked at some places where we might find pattern and discovered that lots of animals have patterns and its what helps us to recognise them. We also realised that lots of our clothes have patterns on them - can you see the patterns in our clothes?

We made our own patterned socks!

Sometimes patterns repeat themselves! We learned that repeat means to do something again and once we could identify a pattern we were able to repeat it over and over to make a repeating pattern. We had lots of fun making repeating patterns on peg boards, with a variety of manipulatives and in our art too!

Of course, it wouldn’t be maths week in Junior Infants if we didn’t make maths hats! I think you will agree that the creative skills of this years hats are outstanding! Well done to all the children for their efforts!

During assembly, we shared our creations with the rest of the school with our maths hat parade!

Maths Week 2020

This week we are celebrating Maths Week 2020. We are enjoying playing maths games, solving maths puzzles and integrating maths into as many other subjects as possible.

“Today in Ms Ward’s class we enjoyed grappling with the E puzzle as designed by the English puzzler Henry Dudeney. ”

With this puzzle players began with their 4 coloured counters on their end of the E. The aim of this puzzle is to get the same coloured counters to the opposite end of the E first. Players played against one another to test strategy and game reading skills. Some players were able to complete this task successfully while others adopted a strategic defensive approach and were unable to succeed in completing this. We then re-did this challenge to work together as partners in completing this puzzle.

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“We also played some PE games like ‘hit the target’ where we through and kicked different sized balls against the target board. We added together our scores at the end of each round.”

Gaelic football

On Wednesdays we enjoy Gaelic football coaching with Kevin. So far we have practiced hand passing, picking the ball off the grounds, kicking and soloing the ball.

Our Student Council are hoping they can work together with our Active Schools Committee to raise enough funds to purchase a set of gaelic scoring posts. This will give us ample time to practice our shooting over the crossbar.

Zoom Assembly

Last week our student council shared their desire to bring back our whole school assemblies which they greatly missed. We looked at how we could make this happen in a safe way.

Today 4th class treated us to a very special whole school Assembly through zoom. We were delighted to be joined by Reverend Rue as we reflected on the challenges of the past and present. We were reminded that we can always talk to God and ask for God’s help when times are difficult. 4th class also sang ‘Father I place into your hands’ and shared their wonderful art display showing the things they are placing into his hands for him to take care of.

Autumn Art

In 1st and 2nd class we have been learning about the different seasons in maths and have also been using our inferring skills to decipher the time of year being described in tests or through pictures.

After much discussion surrounding Autumn, we began to create Autumn trees. We used our arms and hands to create the trunk and branches of the trees. We then used our finder prints to create all the leaves. All of our trees were unique and truly personal.

Positivity and Well-Being in 4th Class

All of the children in 4th class have been working really hard on their positivity. They have been developing their growth mindset in a positive way and are trying their best to always see the glass as half full, rather than half empty! No matter what you think you can’t do, if you put your mind to it, you might be surprised to realise that YOU CAN!

4th class are also trying to follow six very simple words!

KIND HANDS, KIND FEET, KIND WORDS!

If we can all follow these simple words, we believe, the world will be a nicer place!

Autumn is here!

The Junior Infants are currently learning all about different types of materials, but we are learning lots about autumn too!

Spotting seasonal changes is so easy when you go to school in Nun’s Cross. We are so lucky to have the garden that we have and be able to see the changes in nature right on our classroom door. We enjoyed going on an autumn hunt around our school garden and were able to spot most of the signs of autumn including horse chestnuts, mushrooms, berries and lots of different coloured leaves! Afterwards, we completed a list of all of the things we found in the garden.

We have an autumn inspired funky finger station where the children are invited to exercise their fine motor skills by making a hedgehog from matchsticks and marla! A tricky task for little fingers!

We have also looked at the colours of autumn and the variety of colours on the trees around us. We used these colours to create our own finger print autumn trees

We have also learned about some of the animals which are very busy in autumn getting ready for hibernation. We have read lots of stories about them and have really enjoyed creating pictures of them including making marks and patterns with paint and using tissue paper to create a textured collage.