Craftwork: Making crows and scarecrows

Weather data for September

Friday, 30th September, 2011

We have been keeping an eye on the weather.  Every day we put out our weather stick, with a thermometer, rain gauge and flower kite.  Before home time we check the temperature, amount of rain that fell during the school day and how windy it is.  We record these on our daily weather chart.  

Today we took all this information and made a data chart.  We talked about the type of weather most and least common this September, the amount of days with each weather type, and how many more or less days of one kind than of another.  Here are our results:

We will make great weathermen and women when we are older!

Lions in cages

Learning about 2D shapes

A fun occupation

Maths pattern work

Caterpillars and a snail

Monday, 26th September

Teacher was watching the caterpillars eating the leaves.  They eat such a lot each day.

A little snail joined the caterpillars on the cabbage leaves today.

Dino

Seo é Dino.

Téann Dino abhaile linn gach lá.  Bíonn muid ag caint faoin lá le Dino ar scoil gach lá.

This is Dino.  He goes to one of our houses each night.

The next day at school we chat about what Dino did in our house.

We really like it when it is our turn to have Dino.

Musical instruments

Printed owls

A pond for Ferdie

Yesterday Ferdie the frog joined us in our classroom.  Today, thanks to one very talented artist in our class, Ferdie has found a new frog, complete with lilly pads and fish.  Well done, this is one very special pond!  

Ferdie is so happy.

Ag labhairt Gaeilge

Our caterpillars have shed their skins

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Growing so much, even over the weekend.  We can't believe how much they eat now.

Thursday, 22nd September

 Our caterpillars have grown too big for their skins, which they shed last night.

Here is a photo of the caterpillar skins, stuck to the side of the container.

Our bigger caterpillars look really healthy and happy.

Ferdie the frog

 In our drama session we have been to the forest.  There we met Ferdie the frog.  He wanted to come back to the classroom with us, so we have let him stay in our classroom.  We chose him a nice place to stay, on the  Nature Table, sitting on some stones and leaves.  We think he will be very comfortable there.  We enjoyed our visit to the forest and especially the sights and sounds of Autumn.

Bingo with letters and words

Under the microscope

More number activities

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

We are having a lot of fun with numbers.  Today we took out the number hopscotch and teacher played games with it.  We played a game where one person from each team had to compete to find and stand on the number teacher called.  The team with the most wins was the winning team.  

The other game we played was called "sound of a number".  Teacher dropped crayons into a tin, we had to listen well and then figure out how many crayons were in the tin.  This took quite a lot of concentration.

Happy Hedgehog

As Ms. McLoughlin cycled home after school she saw a little hedgehog just outside her garden.  He looked  very happy.  He was sniffing in the leaves, maybe gathering his food before he hibernates for the winter, before his long long winter sleep.  When hedgehogs are frightened they curl up into a ball, so that all the soft parts of their bodies are protected by their spines.  This hedgehog wasn't frightened so he didn't need to curl up at all.

 

Making rainbows and shadows

 When we pushed 6 triangular prisms together we got a lovely hexagonal prism.  (A hexagon has 6 sides)

Today we used triangles, triangular prisms, a hexagon and a hexagonal prism.

Talking about safety

We have been talking about keeping ourselves safe.  We have talked about wearing seat belts in the car, and about how it is safer for us to use booster or car seats so that the seat belts fit us correctly.

Today teacher cycled to school on her bike.  She showed us her high visibility vest and her helmet and we talked about how these keep her safe when she is cycling.

Joshua had brought a fireman's costume to school today, and we talked about the reflectors on this too.  Reflectors are great for making sure that we can be seen in the dark.

Spinning Rainbow Colours

 We learned a poem about colours (in Irish), a song about rainbow colours (in English) and a song from the whiteboard (in English) about mixing colours.

At the end of our very enjoyable session about colours Ms. Lally and her class taught us a great song and dance called "We Will Rock You".  We need to practise this a bit more.

Grandad John

We have a very special grandad who is a fantastic gardener.  He comes to visit us and advise us on how to grow vegetables.  Today he came to tell us about growing tomatoes.  His tomatoes are always lovely and red.

Thanks for telling us about growing tomatoes today.

Autumn tree collage

Maths number games

Loop game with the words we know

We have been practicing all the words we learned last year.  We remember them all now, so teacher let us play a loop game with these words.  We each had a loop card (some had 2).  Each loop card has two words on it.  The first person calls out "I have......(they read the top word), who has........(then read the bottom word)".  After reading this card, the card is placed in the middle.   We all have to watch carefully to be sure to be ready when our turn comes.  When we get faster at this teacher will time us, and each time we will try to beat our best time.  We work really well together when we play this game.

A great magnifier

Gardening and Planting Strawberries

We each took our strawberry plant home today.  We know that each plant needs water, sunshine or light, a bigger pot if we can, and lots of love to grow.  We can look after our plants well.

We hope to see flowers and strawberries in June, and we can't wait to try some delicious strawberries and cream!