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lisa ward
Well-Being Week

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.

Our Amazing Eyes in 1st Class

First class have been busy learning all about the different parts of the eye and the role each part plays to help us see. Today, we recreated the parts of the eye using play doh. Once we made the eyeball, we added on the lens, the pupil, the iris, the retina and the optic nerve. Some of the children even included the messages being transported along the optic nerve to the brain! We were very proud of our creations!

Big Buddies

Our 6th class boys and girls have an extra special job each year, and that is to be a big buddy for a child in Junior Infants. The job of the big buddy is to help the infants settle into the school and show them the ropes! Today our buddies met for the first time and got to play in the playground. The little buddies were made up with their new friends in 6th class and the big buddies made such a fuss of them. The teachers were all so impressed with how kind, considerate and patient the older children were with the younger ones and we were so proud of each of them. We look forward to lots of other opportunities our buddies will have to spend time together this year.

Fine Motor Exercise

Junior Infants have some very important work to do in exercising their fine motor skills and one of the ways we love to do this is with play-doh. We have been having play-doh discos and making all sorts of things with the doh. We have been rolling and squashing, pinching and splatting! We have made snakes, sausages, bowls, pots, and balls of all sizes. We have even practiced using scissors and chopping up our play-doh. Our hands are getting a great workout with all these activities!

1st Day Of School

Nun’s Cross was delighted to welcome 30 new Junior Infants to our school this year. They have all settled in really well and we are so excited to watch them grow over the year! We are enjoying seeing their bright smiles every morning and they have already enjoyed many different activities in Nun’s Cross. The Junior Infant room is a hive of activity - check out some pictures from the first day of school!

Flashback on 2nd and 3rd Class

We have had so much fun in 2nd and 3rd class this year.

Let’s have a look back at some of our adventures from this year.

“Art with Jane Groves”
“European Country Study-Presenting Projects”
“First Time trying our Box Drums”
“When Ms Smith, our student teacher, joined us. ”
“Reading with our Senior Infant buddies.”
“Biodiversity Workshop
We went on a bug hunt and found lots of interesting creatures.”
“Our school trip to Clara Lara”
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Biodiversity day in Nuns Cross

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Today we were visited by the lovely Mairead today who took us on a trail of the school grounds in search of minibeasts. We had great fun searching for minibeasts and we couldn’t believe our eyes with the variety of insects we discovered. Have a look below.

Creative Day 2022

All of the children in Nun’s Cross took part in our annual Creative Day this week. It is a very special day in our school which is totally dedicated to being creative in all sorts of ways.

Our Creative Committee has been working very hard over the last few months to put this day together. All of the children in the school were asked for their input via a survey and the creative areas that were most popular were brought to life on the day!

The first activity that was voted for was a music and drama station. This station was brought to us by Kerry Patterson from Spot Light Studios in Wicklow Town. Spot Light Studios is a state of the art studio in Wicklow town which offers a full timetable of drama, dance, filmmaking, costume design and performing arts classes, to name but a few! Kerry very kindly took time from her very busy timetable and gave up her day to join us for Creative Day. Kerry came to meet our Creative Committee a number of weeks before the day and planned very exciting activities for each of the different age groups.

The infant classes were treated to lots of musical activities with some acting games and dress up too!

Back by popular demand was our tie-dying station. Each child brought in a white piece of clothing and had a choice of a variety of tie-dying designs to choose from. Their colourful creations are a fantastic souvenir from a colourful day!

We love to take every opportunity to bake in our school, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when baking was a very popular choice in our surveys! Chris has worked very hard with the creative committee to design a range of creative baking stations for the children to enjoy! The Creative Committee transformed a classroom into Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory and got into character too! There was not only 1 baking opportunity on offer, but 4! The children created chocolate apples, made rice crispy buns, decorated biscuits and baked their own shortbread cookies. A big thank you to Chris for all her work on this and also to Lisa Armstrong who helped out in the baking room all day!

We got to use our senses while painting today by painting blindfolded! We explored the textures of the paint and the paper and noticed how the paper felt when it had paint on it and when it didn’t. We also explored warm and cold colours and enjoyed making a creative mess! This station was a competition prize, which was won by one of our students who entered a competition run by Louise Cherry -Roberts recently. Louise is a local artist who runs her art studio in Wicklow town and also runs a variety of art camps for children. A big thank you to her and her many helpers, for bringing us this creative opportunity.

A very exciting creative station was brought to us by Ciaran Coughlin and his team of helpers! All the children had the chance to explore computer coding and got to use their creative skills with technology! The children got to create a variety of movable images by creating the background coding which tells the image what to do! Ciaran runs a number of after school coding camps in our school and is also running a series of coding summer camps. If your child is interested in enrolling in a coding camp you can find more information on https://coughlanweb.ie/

We were delighted to have Peter and Dave from Createschools in to do a Lego workshop with us. The children made all sorts of creations and turned them into stock motion animation videos. Check out some of our creations in the video below!

This day could not have taken place with out all the hard work and commitment of our Creative Committee members who worked tirelessly in the lead up to the day and on the day itself. A huge thank you to them and all the teachers and staff for all their time and efforts!

Also a huge thank you to all our artists for their time and efforts that went in to each of the stations! A massive thank you also to all the parent volunteers who gave up their day to come and help run the stations, and of course the big clean up operation which took place after all the creativity was finished! There were so many people involved in making the day successful - thank you to each and every one of you!

Skipping with Skipnrope

We were delighted to welcome Mark from Skipnrope to our school to do a skipping workshop with all the classes. Skipping is key fundamental movement skill that is so important for the children to master and is also a great fun exercise!

Mark showed the children lots of different skipping skills and games that they will be able to use in the playground! We have invested in a large number of skipping ropes to add to our PE equipment which the children can use to exercise their newly acquired skipping skills!

5th class Creative Sessions with Jane

5th class worked with clay and we focused on some important techniques, like making coils, scoring , making slabs and slip . We used habitat as an inspiration to ‘go free style ‘ look at this brilliant gangs creative work!