Last Friday Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Class spent most of the day in the halla celebrating Planet Earth.  We called our day ‘World of Wonder’.  We discussed Climate Action at the beginning, this was to ensure that our senior pupils were able to join in the conversation surrounding the topic from an informed viewpoint, and to explore ways that we can improve our carbon footprint at school and at home. But the main emphasis of the day was to appreciate the wonder of the planet we call home and to focus our attention on all that is marvelous, awesome and special about Earth. We have many lessons and assemblies in school where we learn about how we can be positive environmental citizens, but this assembly, for the most part, was centered around appreciation and gratitude and we began to realise this appreciation is key to us being the best environmental citizens that we can. 

After that we heard inspiring stories about sustainable practices from around the world. We were very lucky to have Emmet, Evie and Millie’s Dad, as a guest speaker.  He did a super presentation for us all about the wonder of animal life on land and in the sea. It was so interesting and we learned so much about animal adaptations.  We even got to invent our own animal!  A massive thank you to Emmet from us all.

We learned a beautiful song called ‘A Song for Planet Earth’ and we read a lovely story called ‘Thank you Earth’.  Barry read a forest visualisation and all the teachers were so impressed by how engaged the pupils were for the duration.  It was so lovely and relaxing!  We heard a story called ‘A Letter from Mother Earth’.  Finally we all wrote letters to Planet Earth to say thanks for the particular things we appreciate and are grateful for. We were delighted that Orla called in to join us in the afternoon.

It really was a fantastic day.  We are so proud about how environmentally informed our pupils are, how interested they are in sustainable practices, how they support the Global Goals and how engaged they are on this type of school day when we all learn together.