Gardening in May

We checked on our garden today.

We did some weeding and saw some nice bugs and insects.

We picked garlic, carrots and radishes.

We will try them all once they have been cleaned and sliced.

Learning about lifecycles

Today we learned (or revised what we know) about lifecycles.

We talked about the lifecycle of the frog, the hen, the butterfly, the duck, the plant and the tree.

After talking about each one we made lifecycle jigsaws, filled in lifecycle sticky charts and played with frogs and butterflies in all of the stages of their lifecycle.

Ask us about lifecycles now.

We are really experts on this!

A growing potato and a caterpillar

 Look at the classroom potato.  It has been growing really well in our press!

 This is an absolutely amazing caterpillar made at home from an egg box.

We just love this wonderful caterpillar!

Papier mache ladybirds

We love bugs and insects.

We covered yoghurt pots and clay balls with newspaper soaked in flour and water.

This is called papier mache.

Today we finished our ladybirds by painting them and sticking on their eyes.

They look really nice.

Visit from Tom Cuffe the birdman

Thank you so much Tom for visiting our class today.

Tom showed us some great origami birds and then told us lots and lots of interesting facts about birds.

We learned about the biggest bird in the world and the biggest in Ireland, the smallest birds, the birds with the longest wingspan, the birds with the biggest and smallest eggs, the birds who can fly the fastest, dive the fastest, tallest birds and lots more.

We were shown how to draw birds, how birds catch and eat mice, what might be in an owl's pellet and what different birds sound like.

We had a fantastic morning with Tom and we learned so much today.

We are all so interested in birds after Tom's talk today.

Thank you so much Tom!

Visiting our class library

Shells and shapes

Look at the great shells and seaweed found on the beach.

We really enjoyed playing our 2D and 3D loop game in maths.

Floating and sinking

We had fun testing to see what objects float and which sink.

We enjoyed guessing first and then testing.

Bird's nest, a jumping frog and ants

Teacher found a nest in her garden.  It had been blown from its tree by the wind.

She also found a little white egg nearby. 

Tom Cuffe, the bird man will be visiting us on Wednesday.  He will help us to identify the nest and the egg.

Emily found a frog in her garden.
Her dad Adrian carefully put the frog into the pets bowl and took him in some pond water to visit us in school.  He was gorgeous.
We took the lid off to have a look and he jumped all round the class.
We were very surprised but we really enjoyed his visit to our class!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in our class:-

We are having great fun reading comics hand written and hand drawn by our own students,

We are looking after our worms and ants,

and we had girls from 1st class visit us to show us their caterpillar.

 Thanks to all who make learning such a fun and hands-on experience for us all!

Bug collage

Worms in the apples!

What's worse than a worm in your apple?

........a half a worm in your apple. Yuck!

May altar

May is the month of Mary.

We have a little May altar with a statue of Mary, a candle, some lovely fresh flowers and a rosary beads.

We are saying a decade of the rosary each day in May.

String telephones and our band

We have been learning about sounds and vibrations.

We tried out some string telephones.  We were surprised that the sound of our voices could travel through the string.

We used our sounds:- voices and drum beats - to make a great class band.

Some of us used our morning play time to match up opposite words or to make lots of silly sentences.

Fables

We are reading and watching lots of Aesop's Fables stories.

We love the messages of the fables.
Check out these great links to online fables:

An egg box hedgehog

Look at the fabulous hedgehog made from an egg box.

Such talented students and such talented parents.

Well done to all!