Tots to teens: Nature art competition — and Great Space Week events to check out
Aria Kelly & Amilie McDonald pictured at the launch of RTE's This Is Art! competition, supported by Creative Ireland. RTE's This Is Art! are calling imaginative children across Ireland to be inspired by the outdoors, with This Is Nature! as the theme for 2025. Young creators will be empowered to express themselves through whatever medium of art they prefer. For more information and entry details, visit www.thisisart.rte.ie
Old-fashioned toys with a modern twist. That’s one way of describing the range of stickers, puzzles, books and tattoos produced by Irish business HoloToyz.
The three friends who founded this business take the toys they loved as children and bring them to life using 3D animation.
Take, for example, the pack of Jurassic Dinos stickers featuring 10 different stickers of velociraptors, pterodactyls, and a fearsome tyrannosaurus rex that kids can use to decorate books and lunchboxes, just as generations of kids have done before them.
The difference is that they or their parents can now download the HoloToyz app, use it to scan the stickers and then be amazed as these prehistoric creatures start moving, growling, and roaring before their eyes.
- The stickers are available at holotoyz.com for €5.99, and the app is free to download.
RTÉ is calling on creative children from all over the island of Ireland to enter its annual This is Art! competition.
The theme for 2025 is ‘This is Nature!’. Whether they capture the beauty of the natural world or the nature of humankind, children are being encouraged to create artworks using any medium they like.
This year’s judging panel includes street artists Maser and Joe Caslin, fashion designer Helen Steele, art curator Mary Conlon, and Cork-born ornithologist Seán Ronayne.
They will judge five different age categories, with €10,000 worth of awards and bursaries being presented to the winners.
- To enter, create an artwork, take a photo of it, and upload it to rte.ie/thisisart by midnight on Saturday, January 31, 2026
Lots of little ones go through a ‘space phase’, marvelling at the stars in the night sky and wondering what it might be like to live on another planet.
If you’ve got one such space cadet in your family, indulge their passion by bringing them along to one of the Space Week Ireland events.
Running until October 10, events include the likes of Space Suits and Alligators, which takes place at the National Reptile Zoo in Kilkenny City tomorrow, Wednesday, October 8.
It will ask what animals can teach us about surviving extreme conditions and how they could help us learn to survive in space.
There will also be an astronomy event at Maynooth University, featuring a talk with artist Mary Bryan about her work, which explores dark matter and the mysteries of the cosmos.
This work is currently on display at Cork’s Blackrock Castle Observatory.
Carl Mullan is urging us to drink our morning coffee and scoff our cornflakes in aid of a good cause.
The TV and radio presenter has joined the Barnardos Big Breakfast campaign, which aims to raise money to support vulnerable children and their families.
It does this by asking members of the public to host a breakfast, invite guests, and ask them to donate to Barnardos.
All proceeds go directly to Barnardos Breakfast Clubs, which provide vulnerable children in early years services and schools with a nutritious breakfast to set them up for the day.
- Visit exa.mn/nature
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