Every year, the children in St. Paul’s enter the Pentel International Children’s Art Competition. We submit the entries at the end of October and it takes almost a full year for entries to be judged and decided upon. A huge congratulations to last year’s winners who were only announced this month. Classes are currently busy completing this year’s entries to post off to Japan for judging. Best of luck everyone.

Thursday was a very special day in St. Paul’s as we celebrated SNA Appreciation Day. The SNAs in St. Paul’s are integral to our school. They support and guide our children and cater to all their needs, while all the time showing patience, love and dedication. Thank you to each and everyone of our SNAs. We value you all so much.

(** Máire, Gillian & Rosemary are missing from the photos **)

On Tuesday the 14th of May, Ms Begley’s Third Class were delighted to welcome a special visitor! Liz Tiernan, from Biodiversity Ireland, came to chat with the class and she helped us to explore all things to do with nature in a very hands on and interactive way. Liz was so impressed by the biodiversity of our school grounds and was delighted to show the children how diverse our nature is right here in St Paul’s!

In our classroom, she showed us the different types of sea life that can be found at our local beaches as well as the little insects that are so important for our biodiversity. The children were very interested in everything Liz had to say and they made plenty of sketches in their Nurture Nature booklets. You can see a sample of the children’s work in the pictures below!

We looked at the beautiful Irish native trees and their characteristics. We learned how to tell how old a tree is (without chopping it down to count the rings!) and we met many little friends on our nature walk – crawlers, flies and various types of birds including the goldfinch. We even met a not so common Ashy mining bee (Andrena Cineraria) – a type of sand bee who love to feed on fruit tree blossoms at this time of the year! They loved the area around our orchard!

The children were able to see everything up close and in detail thanks to their magnifying glasses and they recorded their findings in their sketch pads. We finished off by making clay pendants and using leaves to press into them as a keepsake of our special time with Liz.

It was a great opportunity for these inquisitive children to find out more about the world around them and they came away with a deeper appreciation of their environment. We are very grateful to Liz for coming to visit!

On Thursday the 25 th of April, Ms Begley’s class took a trip to the Lidl Distribution Centre in Newbridge, Co. Kildare. They were not going shopping for a bargain air fryer or a new ski jacket though! They were taking part in Agri Aware’s initiative called ‘Farm to Fork’. In Science this month, we are teaching the 3 rd class children about the journey of our food from the farm to our dinner tables. It is a very valuable learning topic for the children as it promotes an understanding and appreciation of all the important processes and people involved in ensuring our population has access to food. With this in mind, we arranged a field trip for the children in partnership with Agri Aware and Lidl Ireland. The children from Ms Begley’s class were the first of the 3 rd classes to travel to the Lidl farm in Newbridge,County Kildare and it was here that the children had the opportunity to learn about food processes. 
The children experienced the process of growing and producing food and they learned about soil conditions that help our crops to grow. They also visited a large polytunnel where they saw first-hand how many of our fruit and vegetables grow. They got to taste herbs and even a lettuce that they picked from the polytunnel. This combination of hands-on activities and discussion led by the Agri Aware education officers, Roisín and Eimear, really helped the children to learn and appreciate where their food comes from. They even made butter with one of the tour guides – we were very impressed at how well the children could shake the cream up! The butter was made in record time! They also got a sneak peek behind the scenes to see how all types of food are distributed from the centre to our local Lidl store with a train ride inside the Lidl Regional Distribution Centre. There may have been a few songs sung along the way and we doubt the staff in the distribution centre has ever heard the Wheels on the Bus song sung more beautifully than our class managed to! We enjoyed every minute of our experience in the Lidl Distribution Centre and we thank the Agri Aware staff for imparting all of their knowledge about growing food…and butter making too!

We had a fantastic Roald Dahl themed Book Week this year where the children were exposed to many Roald Dahl books and they learnt lots of interesting facts about the famous author. There were plenty of activities over the week including book browsing at the Book Fair; shared reading where children in the older classes read to the younger classes; DEAL time (Drop Everything And Listen) where the children had a visitor to their room to read some Roald Dahl stories. We ended the week with a dress up day and the children dressed up as a character from their favourite book – we had lots of Matildas, Oompa Loompas, Willy Wonkas and even some Golden Tickets!! Willy Wonka himself hid some golden tickets around the school and the lucky finders were rewarded with a chocolate bar!

We were delighted with the amount of books sold at the Book Fair as the school will get 60% of the money raised back in books for our libraries. A huge thank your to our Parents’ Association for manning the Book Fair and to every parent for your support in purchasing books and of course for helping to kit out your children in fantastic costumes on Friday.