On Friday 1st May 1st and 2nd class went on a walk to Celebrate May Day. We walked around our village on the Heritage Trail. It was a lovely, hot and sunny day. We saw lots of signs of spring and summer. We saw lots of plants like bluebells, daisies, wild garlic and dandelions. We also saw wildlife including rabbits, cows and horses. The walk goes along a small road for a bit and then into the fields. We had to climb over the walls between each field using the stiles. The walk was nearly 4 kilometers, but we got to stop in the village playground half way around! It was a lovely walk and it was fun going out in the sun!

~ 1st and 2nd class

We are very lucky to have a brand new willow tunnel in the school thanks to the Creative Schools initiative and Wicklow Willow. Our willow tunnel is brand new and may look a little bare at the moment, but it is living willow and in the coming months and years it will grow. The children will learn to tend to, and help maintain the willow tunnel by weaving its branches back into itself when they grow long enough. We plan to make the space beyond the tunnel into a calm, imagination garden for all to enjoy!

For the last couple of months 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th class have been having chess lessons. We have been enjoying it very much. Stephen and Bernadette come in every Friday to teach us how to pay chess. We have learnt how to capture our opponents pieces, how to ‘castle’, how to ‘En Passant’, how to ‘family fork’ and many other moves. Every week we learn a new skill and play matches to practice. This week we learnt how to write down our chess moves so that we can look back on our moves and improve. Next week we will hopefully get to use chess clocks.

~ 5th and 6th class

Every year 5th and 6th class organise our School’s Lenten bake sale. This year we chose to do a fundraiser for Milo’s Mission Rescue who are a local animal rescue charity. We held the bake sale on Friday 17th April and we raised over €700 for Milo’s Mission. 5th and 6th class had jobs throughout the day including selling the baking, selling raffle tickets and helping the younger classes to buy their treats. Our raffle was a success and there were many yummy cakes and cupcakes up for grabs! We are so happy that we can help the local cats and dogs with the money we have raised.

~ 5th and 6th class

At the beginning of the year we started to make a school mosaic with local artist Christien van Bussel. We started by making tiles out of clay. We drew on the clay with pencils and printed different shapes like shells and pasta to create patterns. After we designed them, the clay tiles were fired in a kiln. We then painted the tiles with glaze and they were fired in the kiln again. Soon after we painted them Christien came back and put the tiles up on the wall in the outdoor classroom and now we have a beautiful mosaic in our school!

~ 5th and 6th class

This month we are studying China as a whole school. We will be doing lots of activities and lessons on all things China. We made a Chinese Dragon for everybody to play with and use in drama lessons, golden time and other times throughout the month. The pictures below show all the steps the dragon went through to get to it’s final form and we are delighted with how it turned out! A big thank you to all the staff and pupils involved in making him!!

On Wednesday this week lots of Saint Francis NS pupils, their families and some pets walked from the Castle Inn in the Village to the school. We got given high-vis jackets and we walked to the school grounds. This was called WOW (walk on Wednesday) and we did it because this week is wellness week. It was a very cold morning and we were all wrapped up warm. Everybody loved it and maybe we should do it more often!

~ 3rd & 4th class

We are making a school mosaic mural with local artist Christien van Bussel. A couple of weeks ago we made our clay tiles and decorated them with lots of fun designs, including pasta shapes. On Monday she came back in to school with our hardened tiles, so we got to paint them. It was very fun. Christien showed us all the special paint called glaze. The tiles will get fired again and then our mural will be ready.

~ 1st & 2nd class