More September Art

We are talking a lot about Autumn. Here are some of the autumn leaves, fruits, nuts and berries that we have on our Nature Table. We made some leaf rubbing pictures, and some tree collages.

We were talking a lot about scarecrows too so we used felt to make a scarecrow each, then we painted the field around him. Our scarecrows are really colourful.

Helicopters

Forces - Air, Helicopters

Monday, 29th September 2008

We found an ash tree with lots of seeds on it. Teacher found a sycamore tree with lots of helicopters on it. These seeds fly in the wind.
Teacher can use a balloon to make a helicopter fly.

We made our own helicopters. They fly when we drop them. The smaller ones fly better than the big ones, and helicopters with paper clips fly the best.

Visit from an Occupational Therapist

Friday, 26th September, 2008 One of the boys in our class has a mum who has a very interesting job. She is an occupational therapist or OT for short. She came to our class today to show us what she does in her work.

Anita works with elderly people, or with young people who need help doing the basic things in life like feeding themselves, dressing themselves or looking after themselves. She brought in lots of things that she uses in her work, like a kettle/teapot pourer, elastic laces, a plate guard, an adapted spoon, a grabber for picking up objects and a splint for people with arthritis in their hands.

She also brought in a skeleton of the spine and pelvis. We thought at first they might be dinosaur bones but they turned out to be a model of real human bones. OTs use lots of science in their jobs. They need to know all the bones, muscles and nerves in the body. They know lots and lots about the human body. They have to study for 3 or 4 years to learn how to be an OT. It is very important to lift things correctly. Anita showed us how to lift things by bending our knees and keeping the box close to us as we lift it. If we do this well we might not get any backache as we grow older. Lots of us had a go to try and see could we lift correctly. Some children and adults have to use wheelchairs if they find it really hard to walk. Our OT showed us the parts of a wheelchair and some of us got turns at trying it out. It was tiring.

Visit to the Ballybane Library

Thursday, September 25th, 2008 Senior Infants, Room 5 and Room 7, walked to the Ballybane Library today. The librarians had a nice welcome for us and helped us find anything we needed.
We found lots and lots of really nice books in the library - picture books, magazines, funny books, longer books to read and really big books. We also found lots of other nice games and puzzles in the library. We found all sorts of jigsaws, a zoo set, a space puzzle, a wooden shoe to lace, a doll's house, blocks for building, cuddly animals, crayons and colouring pages, lorries and trucks, a fire station, and even a fish tank with lots of colourful fish in it. You should take a trip to Ballybane library and see for yourselves!

Garda Visit

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

One of the boys in our class has a dad with an interesting job. He is a garda. He came to visit us today to tell us all about being a guard. He showed us all the things that he carries with him when he is at work, and he told us how to stay safe.Ronan the garda was very nice. He talked to us all about keeping safe - crossing the road, wearing seat belts in the car, talking to strangers, what to do if we get lost. He even gave each us a red light reflector for the back of our bikes, to keep us safe when we are cycling. Now we know how to stay safe.

Army Visitors

Visit from Army personnel, 23rd September, 2008

One of the Mums in our class came to talk to us about being in the army. Amy and Danny showed us some army things and explained how they all work. They use a lot of science in their job. Here are some of the science topics they covered in their talk:

· Protecting our eyes and ears and faces, how a gas mask works.

· Cooking outdoors. Getting enough liquids. Carrying water bottles.

· Surviving outdoors, staying warm and dry. Making a camp. Packing and carrying rucksacks.

· Camouflage and camouflage paint. Mosquito nets.

· First aid kits. Peacekeeping.

Number Fans

We use number fans in our class. They look like this: We can play games with them, hiding then showing the number before/after/between numbers. It is a lot of fun.

Our Class

We took pictures of all our class today. We have 8 girls and 14 boys in our class this year. Here are their picutres.

Trip to the Beach

Wednesday, 17th September 2008
Today was a gorgeous day so Ms. Flaherty's class and Ms. McLoughlin's class of Senior Infants went to the beach.
We had a lovely walk to the beach. On the way we practised crossing roads safely. We learned this rhyme:
Stop, look, and listen
Before you cross the street.
Use your eyes, use your ears,
and then use your feet!
On the beach we found lots of treasures: shells, seaweed, rocks and rock pools, dog's footprints and lots and lots of sand.
On our way home we stopped under our horse chestnut tree and we saw what it looks like in Autumn.

Balloon Lung and How Big are my Lungs?

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Today we were talking about breathing and about our lungs.
Balloon Lung: It was easier to understand about what goes on when we breathe when we did a breathing investigation.
Teacher cut up a 2litre bottle and put a balloon on the end. (The balloon is like our lungs and the bottle is like the rib cage). We can get a balloon lung to inflate (blow up) and deflate (go down), inside its lungs (a coke bottle) by squeezing the bottle.
Next we found out how big our lungs are:
When I blow out through the tube, the air from my lungs goes into the big bottle. The air in the bottle goes into the basin. The air in the bottle when I am finished is the air that came out of my lungs. Lots of air means big lungs!

Counting stick

Tuesday, September 16th 2008.
We have a counting stick in our classroom. We use it for saying all our numbers and figuring out which number comes where on the stick. We even have challenges where teacher points to the stick and we have to call out the number she is on.

Human Number Line

Tuesday, September 16th,2008.
We have digit cards with the numbers 0 to 9 written on them. We made them into a human number line, and then we practised keeping the line in order and swapping numbers that were "before" and "after" each number. It was great fun.

Maths: Data

Yesterday,September 15th, teacher read us the story of "The Smartest Giant in Town". Today we did some voting. Each of us had to choose who we thought deserved the giant's clothes the most - maybe the giraffe because he might catch a cold with no scarf, maybe the goat who had no sail for his boat, maybe the mouse who had no home for herself and her children, maybe the fox who had no sleeping bag, or maybe the dog who was stuck in the bog. It was a very fair vote, and we made a chart of our results.

Art in September

We have been talking about ourselves and learning the parts of our bodies in Irish. Look at the nice face collages we made of ourselves.

We have also been talking about keeping our rubbish in the bins. Do you like the bins we painted and stuck? Some of them even have rubbish in them.

Shapes Loop game

Thursday, 11th September.
We talked a lot today about shapes and colours. We learned about circles, squares, rectangles, triangles and hexagons. Hexagons have 6 sides and are very hard to draw. When we knew the names of the shapes we played a great loop game. It took us 4 minutes and 29 seconds to finish. We will get much faster as we practise more.

When I was a baby

We asked at home about the day each of us was born. We found out about the day, date, time and place of our births. We even brought some baby toys, a baby bottle, baby clothes and photographs from when we were babies.

Maths Activities

Maths Activities
Monday, 8th September 2008.
Last week in our Maths activities we sorted all sorts of groups according to colours. We used bottle tops, counters, links, sorting basket and links


This week our activites are different, even though we are using some of the same things. This week we are looking at colours and patterns in Maths. We use pegs, counters, links, pattern blocks and beads to follow patterns. It is fun. We can make our patterns even longer than teachers!