Science Experiments Galore!

All this week, in celebration of science week, all children were working hard all week on a science experiment of their choice. The children got a chance at the end of the week to share their experiments with their friends. There were some explosions, including some unexpected ones, a few accidental spillages and numerous broken eggs throughout the day but the children did a great job at demonstrating their scientific knowledge! Well done to all the children for all their hard work and to all the teachers for their help with all the experiments throughout the day!

Eggy Experimentation

5th and 6th class were given the challenge of designing and making parachutes to take their boiled eggs to the ground safely. Before embarking on this challenge, we made sure all of eggs were boiled and we set the parameters for success and fair testing. We decided we all needed to drop the egg parachutes from the same height. This was agreed to be the classroom window - which is on the second floor.

We also decided to be kind for ourselves and agreed on the rule that successful completion of this task would result in homework passes being given to all members of successful teams. Eggs were carefully inspected at the beginning of the challenge and any cracks were noted.

Students worked in pairs to complete this challenge and 30 minutes were given to the students. We used a variety of junk art materials which were kindly given by parents of the students. Take a look at some of the action ….

The anticipation was immense.

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We quickly scrambled downstairs to check for survivors …

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In a number of cases casualties were noted.

However not all attempts were in vain.

Science week in 4th class

This week in 4th class the students were given the challenge to design and make a magnetic boat that could float. We investigated and proved that magnets could attract certain materials through other materials such as water. We had great fun designing the boats and all our designs turned out so different.

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SEAI Workshops

The children from 1st-6th class had a visit from the SEAI this week and got to take part in some very interesting workshops.

The children talked about the ways in which energy is used and the different things they can do to save energy. They were introduced to Guzzler the puppet who wasn't very good at saving energy and desperately needed them to teach him, for example, by turning off the light when he leaves a room or turning off the television when he is not using it.

Individual children took turns to mime some of the different ways in which we use energy while the others guessed what they were doing for example, brushing their teeth, ballet dancing and playing sports. Some children were involved in a clothes dressing race where they were encouraged to put on an outfit over their own clothes, as quickly as possible, while the other children cheered them on. They then discussed how they had used energy, which generated heat and that this had warmed up their bodies. Guzzler then told the children that he 'ate sunshine'.

There were many puzzled faces at first but some children then demonstrated how the sun shines on plants and that when we eat plants, we harvest energy from the plants, that begun as sunlight. Guzzler had therefore 'eaten sunshine' because he had eaten the corn that had grown after being exposed to sunlight.

The children enjoyed the workshop and had great fun. There were smiles all round.

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Glendalough Outreach Visit

On Tuesday 3rd class had a visit from Glendalough Outreach. Anne-Marie taught us about some of the mammals living in the local area.

We learned lots of facts and even got to see some of the wildlife up close. We stroked a badger, a stoat, rabbit and a red squirrel.

We also tried to avoid being pricked by a hedgehogs quills (they are as sharp as they look). We really enjoyed the visit and would be delighted to have another visit in the future.

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Team Hope Shoebox Collection

This year, the children of Nun’s Cross collected a very impressive 157 shoe boxes for Team Hope, that is one shoe box from every child in our school! All of our shoe boxes will travel to Lesotho in Southern Africa and will be distributed to children who are much less fortunate than ours.

A huge thank you from us all for your generosity in supporting this wonderful cause!

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Science Week so far in Nuns Cross NS

This week we have been learning about famous scientists who made an enormous contribution to the world we live in. Our understanding of the world and so many of the items we take for granted have been hugely influenced by the world of science. Take a look at some of the scientists whose lives and work we have studied. Can you guess their contribution to the world?

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School Sports Kits

Our School sports kits have finally arrived and we are so excited to share them with you.

Last year, we held our annual Active week which included our most popular fundraising event, the Race To Galway. We raised €1000 and were able to design and create our own school sports kit with this money. The sports kit consists of a soccer set of 12 jerseys and goalie kit and 20 athletic kits in a variety of sizes. They will be well used in a variety of sporting events over the coming year and, hopefully, for many years after this one too!

Many thanks to all the parents who supported the fundraising event and made it possible to get this wonderful addition to our school. We hope you like them as much as we do!

Artifacts belonging to students which were exhibited on Heritage Day

See below a collection of artifacts which were brought to school on Thursday the 7th of November. The students have kindly provided some information on their historical treasures.

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this is a shell on the right of the picture. it was shot in 1912 in the war. on the left is my great great great grandad. his job during the war was to train the horses for the soldiers that went to war. he had a horse of his own called joey . he was poisoned 5 days before the war ended.

Another student brought in another shell which was dated 1917 and was used during the First World War.

These are German glasses from the Second World War. They are meant to be worn under a gas mask.

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These are jail keys from Kilkenny Castle in the 1850s. All the keys are different shapes and the top and bottom.

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an old world war 1 shoe last

This was my great grandads shoe last during World War 1 the piece of it facing north was for kids shoes the bit facing east was for adults shoes and the bit facing east is for adults shoes and the bit facing up is for the heel.

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Queen EliZabeth’s 25th commemoration coin

This coin was placed in my house in 1978 years ago. About 41 years ago the people that lived in our house got the living room done up. When they did they found the coin in the supporting structure and put it back. Then when I was in first class we were getting the house done up one of the builders found it in the support beams and we put back a 2 euro coin.

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From Left to Right: A medal from the coronation of King Edward VIII, 1937.

Big Bear Planetarium

We were so lucky to have a visit from the Big Bear Planetarium. It took up the whole multipurpose room!! Each class got a session inside the planetarium and we learned so much about space, the planets and the stars. It was really dark inside and it felt like we were really in space!

Many thanks to Mike Fry who completed the Three Peak Challenge to raise funds for this and to all who sponsored him last year.

Stained Glass Window Art

The junior infants are learning all about glass this week. Did you know that glass is made from melting sand? We have discovered that glass is rigid, brittle and fragile.

We made stained glass windows for our art lesson this week. It took lots of patience but the results are worth the time and effort.

Building Fun In Junior Infants

The Junior Infants are learning about materials for the month of November. We are very busy in our construction site, building and repairing all sorts of things. We are having great fun using our imagination in our small world area and there is no limit to our imagination when we are using our lego to construct buildings!

Heritage for Schools Visit by Aidan Dockery

Today we had a wonderful visitor to our school who shared some of his prized pieces of history with us and some of the amazing stories behind them. Students from 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th classes spent time with Aidan and got the opportunity to share some of their own artifacts with him and their classmates.

Take a look at some pictures from today…

See below the thoughts of some of the 5th and 6th class students about the visit…

It was really interesting learning about his Uncle Joseph who died in World War 1.

I really liked Aidan.He was really helpful and interesting . He is a huge stamp and coin collector and has countless cool artifacts.

What I really liked was the way he told us all about his family. It was really interesting how he had some of his Uncle Joseph’s possessions.

It was so interesting! He told us about his uncle Joseph who got shot through the belt he was wearing and died. Aidan has the belt at home and he said it has a big bullet hole in the back of it, and 3 days before his uncle died, he wrote a letter to his mum to say that he was fit and healthy. He was so interesting and ms Ward was taught how to hold a cigar.

He read us a poem about war called ‘the box’ and it was really moving.

I liked when you were talking about your uncle Joseph and when you were showing me the golf stuff at the end. He had a hat signed by Shane Lowry.

I loved seeing all the amazing antiques people brought in!

I loved how he spoke about antiques and the sad story of his uncle.

I loved it! It was so interesting. The display was really nice! The best part was when he did a poem called ‘The Box’. One of the letters that Joseph wrote was really gruesome and in the trenches, Joseph was fighting and a shell blew off one of the soldiers’ heads. Mainly I loved it!

He is a very interesting man and he had so many things.

I found it interesting when you talked about your uncle and showed us things from World War 2 and World War 1.

Thank you so so much Aidan.

I loved the poem the box because it taught everybody how bad war actually is because when you see it on the news you feel sad for the people in the country but you don’t know how horrible it is and you know that the person that started it is selfish and really mean.

I liked when he was talking about his uncle and I really found it interesting that he had so many different stuff and he put a gas mask on someone.

Aidan was a really nice man who taught me what the biggest lake in Ireland witch is Lockney and about ww1,ww2 and about his brother in the war he was very helpful when people were asking questions. thank you, Aidan.

I loved learning about the stamps and coins and postcards.

5th and 6th class October Project Showcase

Today 5th and 6th class showcased our October projects. These were based on our SESE topics from October which included space, climate change and natural disasters. It is clear from the projects on display that Space Week had a big influence on project topic choice. We invited some classes to come and view our projects and our parents were also invited in at the end of the school day. Take a look at some of our great work below…

More pictures to follow shortly!

Climate Action Week in Nuns Cross

Over the past couple of weeks our Green Schools Committee have been promoting Climate Action Week in our school. As part of this, students were tasked with writing some climate action poems which were read out at assembly this morning. Take a look at our class winners below…

I think it is fair to say that the world and our futures are in great hands!

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Pumpkin Carving

The Junior Infants got to explore pumpkins today. We carved a pumpkin and got to see (and smell) inside. It was a bit gooey and disgusting! After we carved a pumpkin we made our own collage pumpkin! Keep an eye out for them at the disco!

New Sports Equipment

We were delighted to take a delivery of some brand new sports equipment today.

At the start of the year the Active Committee completed an inventory of our equipment and were shocked at how much PE resources were gone, either missing, broken, stuck in trees etc. We put together a wish list of all the things we needed to buy and this wish list was very kindly covered by our PTA. Many thanks to them for providing this much needed equipment.

The Active Committee have put a more secure system in place around the use of our equipment at break times. The children will be provided with specific playground resources at break times and are not permitted to have unsupervised access to the PE shed at any time. We hope that this will help our equipment to be around for longer. All of our new resources have been labelled and we would ask that if any of it ends up being taken home by accident that it is returned to school as soon as possible

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Maths stories by 4th class

4th class wrote fantastic stories as part of their maths week celebrations and the rest of the classes got to enjoy a story session with them. Well done 4th class, your stories were fantastic!

Repeating Pattern Fun

Junior Infants are learning all about repeating patterns this week and so far its proving to be a lot of fun! Check out the patterns we have made so far!