Friday 29 February 2008

Changing Flower Colours

Our daffodils have bloomed. They are a lovely yellow colour. We put each of them into a drink of coloured water - one red, one blue and one green. The daffodils drank up the coloured water and have now changed colour themselves. This drinking of the water is by capillary action.

Sowing Potatoes

Our class are taking part in the Agri Aware potato growing challenge. Our school was sent some compost, a grow bag and a potato seed. We have planted and watered the potato, and we hope to harvest lots of potatoes in June. We are very excited about watching them all grow.

Friday, 6th June, 2008
Today we decided to harvest our potatoes. We needed weighing scales, a basin of clean water, a towel, plastic gloves and the potato plant. We looked to see how tall our plant is by comparing it with the tallest and the smallest child in our class. When the potato plant was pulled out of the ground we could see all the little potatoes growing out of the roots. We collected, washed, dried and weighed the potatoes. We harvested six, and together they weighed 2 and a half ounces. If we had left them in the soil longer we think they would have grown much bigger and heavier.

Monday 25 February 2008

Codladh Céad Bliain

Sleeping Beauty, Monday, 25th February, 2008
We are doing a play in Irish. It is called Codladh Céad Bliain.
Seo an Rí agus an Banríon. Seo an Prionsa agus an Banphrionsa.Seo iad na prionsaí eile agus na síoga.






Seo í Cruella...is í an drochshíog.






Seo iad na daoine sa bhaile agus na scéalaí.
Seo iad na daoine atá ag obair sa phálás.

Friday 22 February 2008

Ugandan display

Ms. Tierney was in Uganda last summer. She had a wonderful time. Now our school is twinned with the school she taught at last summer. Ms. Tierney brought pictures, videos and lovely things from Uganda. She showed them to us today. She let us try on the grass skirts and the Ugandan shawls. We even tried playing the Ugandan drum.

Ms. Tierney's friend Emer came to talk to all of us about Uganda too. It was very interesting.

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Visit from the Fire Brigade

We had a visit from some of the Galway firemen, with the fire engine today. We were shown the inside and outside of the fire engine, and we had a chance to squirt the power hose. It was very interesting and good fun.

Monday 18 February 2008

3D shapes

3D Shapes, Monday, 18th February, 2008 We made 3D shapes from matchsticks and blue tack. Can you see our cube, our triangular pyramid and our square pyramid? The pyramids were both stronger than the cube when teacher pushed down on them with her hand.We made the same shapes with magnetic shapes (rods and spheres).
We tried making the shapes with marshmallows too. That was fun but very messy. Marshmallows are so sticky!

Monday 11 February 2008

Spring Flowers

We went on a short nature walk around our school, looking for spring flowers. We found yellow daffodils, white snowdrops, yellow crocuses and green shamrock leaves.

Signs of Spring


Signs of Spring, Monday, 11th February, 2008
In class we were talking about trees in spring, and how deciduous trees have buds in spring, inside which the new leaves grow. We went for a little walk around our school and checked the buds on the ash and horse chestnut trees nearby. The ash trees have plenty of very black buds, but there is no sign of green leaves yet.

We also checked the horse chestnut trees near the school. Those buds are not out yet either. Horse chestnut buds are very interesting. They are really sticky. That means that the delicate leaves inside the buds stay nice and safe and warm and dry when the weather is very cold and wet.


Friday 8 February 2008

Hot and Cold, Melting

Today we had a look at what happens to very cold things when you heat them up.
We found out that the ice-cream and the ice cube that were in the freezer melted when we left them out of the freezer.
The butter and the chocolate did not melt when we left them on the table, so we put them on the radiator. The butter melted first. The chocolate didn't seem to melt but was really soft when teacher touched it.
Now we understand why some things have to be kept in the freezer, some things in the fridge, and some things in a cool place in the room.

Thursday 7 February 2008

February Art

It was St. Brigid's Day on February 1st . We made crosses out of paper. They looked lovely.On the 14th of February it will be St. Valentine's Day. We are making nice things out of hearts for Valentine's Day.
We made hearts out of beads. Then teacher ironed them so that the beads all stick together. We used 6 hearts to make nice 'Somebunny Loves You' cards.We made some lovely stain glass patterns with tissue paper and black sugar paper. When we stick them on the window the light shines nicely through them.


Mother's Day is on March 2nd this year. We made lots of nice cards for our Mums to show them how much we love them.

Monday 4 February 2008

More Shape and Space Activities

We are doing more about space and shape. Here are some of the activities we are using: Logic attribute blocks, 3D shapes, matchsticks and marla, pattern blocks and tangrams. Each day we switch activities so each table gets to try each activity.