Newsletter

June 30th, 2024

Outdoor Learning sessions in TUDublin

Good afternoon parents and guardian,

I hope you have had a nice week. We have been busy this week with our 6th class graduation.

Our 5th class parents worked tirelessly to host an amazing end of year party for our graduates. One of our past pupils, Tara O Callaghan, produced this lovely video –

Here is the link to download the 6th class graduation video:
https://we.tl/t-YDuwIgYUwy

We are still in school next week for Summer Programme.

Our class lists and teacher names will be sent out via Aladdin early in the week  with our end of year Newsletter.

A big thanks to Pat Keville from Plant Store who worked tirelessly on Thursday with Mags, our SNA, Thomas and Theo on our school plants.

Thanks for the supply of new plants, repotting and refreshing our current supply.

Outdoor Learning Sessions

Róisín’s first class have been doing some outdoor learning sessions in Grangegorman this term. We have been going down once a fortnight to our ‘forest’ area near the playground to play and learn.

Thank you so much to Jimmy, Mark , Derek and all the team in TU Dubling and to the OPW Park Rangers from the Phoenix Park for cutting, delivering and setting up our logs. We have been using these for our circle time to begin our outdoor learning sessions.

During circle time we have learned some lovely nature songs: ‘In the Beginning was a Seed’, ‘Sín do lámha’ and ‘Land of the Silver Birch’. We also used this opportunity to listen to the different bird songs which can be heard. We correctly identified by sight and sound a robin, blackbird and wagtail. It was lovely to sit on our logs under the trees and listen to the sounds of the birds! We also used this lovely circle to have our lunch at the end of each session and to talk about what we liked and what we would like to have more of.

We have loved collecting, examining and identifying the mini beasts. We created a woodlousery which we brought back to the classroom and observed and cared for the woodlice for a month before returning them back to their original habitat. It was so much fun searching for mini-beasts.

Every week there was a craft area and we created some nature based art. We decorated May branches, made wooden necklaces and made clay faces on the trees. Our faces were made with all-natural clay and so were left on our guardian tree this week. Take a visit down to see if they are still there!

This Wednesday was our last session. We had great fun creating puppet shows in our tent, making a teddy wedding, opening a café as well as all our usual activities. As it was such a sunny day we had an extra long session and even had some ice-pops as a treat! We finished off the session with our lunch and a sing song of our Arts Week songs including ‘D7 Forever!’

First-Class School Tour

All three first classes went on their school tour to Causey Farm in County Meath on Tuesday this week and it was a huge hit, scoring ten out of ten across the board. It was a whole day of adventure and activities, including a mirror maze, climbing through tunnels, a train ride, rolling down green hills, bubble creation, giant dominoes and welly-throwing (a surprising highlight!).  The children had the chance to pet a variety of animals, including lamas and to hold puppies and chickens.  The three classes spent the bus journey back to Dublin singing at the tops of their voices, so a good time was had by all!

A group of children sitting on hay

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Denominational Instruction 2024 25

Classes for children in D7ET intending to receive First Holy Communion in May 2025 classes will begin during the second week of September 2024.  Please contact caitlinniruairc@gmail.com by Monday 8th July if you are interested in registering your child for classes.  Details to follow.

Have a nice weekend,

Fionnuala

Graduation 2024

Fionnuala McHugh, June 28, 2024