Inventions for our grandparents

We had a great LEGO designing session today.

We designed things that we think our grandparents would really love:

A voice controlled car.

An automatic drinks dispenser:

A pet mouse or rat home (in case our grandparents get tired of watching TV!):

A back up electricity generator:

A bumper car - no need to worry about crashing!:

An automatic car with in-built camera:

An extra modern, extra comfortable sitting room:

A speedy car:

A machine to bring you back to life when you die!:

A machine to help remind you of the names of different shapes in case you forget:

A burglar alarm!:

A super safe mobile house that flies with the help of this special car:

A machine that lets you change the seasons if you get tired of the weather!:

A pig and cow that can travel together (a must-have for our farming grandparents:)

Automatic taps for grandparents who have trouble twisting taps:

A car that will hold 1000 grandparents at the same time! Ideal for senior parties!:

A muscle building, weight reducing machine so our grandparents won't get fat!:

Another super speedy automatic car:

More air experiments

We made fantastic hovercrafts using old CDs, water bottle tops, balloons and blue tack.
We love the way the hovercrafts float on a layer of air to move.

We were fascinated by this next air experiment. When you put tissue into a cup, then put the cup into a bowl of water, the tissue inside the cup stays dry. Why? The tissue stays dry because the air in the cup does not allow water into the cup even if it is turned up-side down in the water. We used blue tissue at first because it is easy to see whether the tissue is wet or dry. Next we used coloured water and white tissue because if the tissue stayed white we knew it also had stayed dry. We are definitely going to try this experiment at home!

Spotting Houses

Today we walked to the beach with Ms. Conneely's class.

We looked at all sorts of houses.

We found bungalows, 2 story houses, 3 story houses, caravans, camper vans, detached houses, dormer houses, a thatched cottage, apartments, semi-detached and detached houses and even a split level house.

The highlight of our house spotting was when we got to see inside a real caravan! What a treat!

On our way to the beach we spotted all sorts of shapes.  Lots of the signs we passed were triangles, diamonds, rectangles, circles or octagons.  We also spotted cuboids, cylinders and spheres.

Which shapes can you see?

Lastly we just had fun.  Fun on the beach on such a nice day.  It is great that our school is so close to lovely Ballyloughane beach.

PE outdoors

We love PE outside.

Today we used hula hoops, beanbags and skipping ropes.

We had a lot of fun.

Healthy data charts

 We have been talking about healthy living and healthy eating.

Today we used our EDpaX Science CD to help us make "My Favourite Meal" and "My FavouriteTreat" data charts. We counted and compared all the different groups.  We are getting really good at interpreting data charts. 

 We chatted a lot about the different food groups and about needing good food, drinks, sleep, exercise and fresh air to be healthy and to grow big and strong.

Easter chick collages

We used our crayons and yellow squares of crepe paper to make these great collages.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Easter bunny crafts

Spring songs we like

We learned frogs are amphibians.

We are learning all about farm animals and their babies.

We love this song!!!

Thanks to Ms. Conneely's class for telling us about these great songs!

Forces experiments: Air

We did some very interesting experiments today.

They were all about air.

 Teacher had two identical 2l coke bottles.  Each had an identical yellow balloon inside.

She gave us the bottles to blow up the balloons.

No one was able to blow the balloon in the first bottle.

We had lots of guesses as to why this might be so.

We found out later on that the reason we couldn't fill the balloon is because the bottle was already full of air.
It was easy to blow up the balloon in the other bottle because teacher had put little holes in the bottle for the air already in the bottle to escape. Now we know that "empty" bottles are not really empty at all.  They are full of air!

We squeezed the air out of a bottle and then put on the lid.  It was impossible for the bottle to go back into its original shape until we let the air back in!

Next we tried to blow a ball made of tissue into a bottle.  We tried blowing really hard but none of us could manage to score the goal.

Finally we were able to do this when we used a straw and blew all our air directly at the ball.

When we just blow without the straw, the air from our mouths goes round the ball, bounces off the back of the bottle and then comes back out again, taking the tissue ball with it.  We are definitely going to try this one at home.

Have you ever had a conversation with a bottle?

You should try this:  Fill a bottle with really cold water and then empty out the water.  The air in the bottle is now very cold.  Wet the lid and put it upside down on the bottle.  Now warm the air in the bottle with your hands.  The air in the bottle warms up and because it takes more space than cold air, the warm air pushes out from under the lid.  As you keep warming the air, the lid keeps popping up and down, and looks like it is talking to you.

Now for something impossible!

If you try to blow a ping pong ball up out of a funnel you will find that it it an extremely tricky thing to do.

In fact it can't be done.  The air from your lungs sticks to the side of the funnel and won't have enough force to push the ball out of the funnel (even if you use a straw....we tried  this so we know!)

In fact, it is almost impossible to blow a candle out if you blow through a funnel.

Only Ms. Lally could manage this one!  We think maybe she had the rim of the funnel near the flame, but maybe she is just exceptionally talented!

Now for the serious fun:

We made our own sprays! With just a straw cut in two and a glass of water, we were able to spray water droplets.

The straw standing in water is filled with water and air.  As we blow the air from around the top of the straw in the water, we create an area of low pressure.  The air in the straw rushes to take the place of the air blown away.  As we continue to blow, the water in the straw rushes to take the place of the air blown away.  As the water reaches the top we blow that too and separate the little water droplets which come squirting out in a fine spray.

All these experiments are fun (and safe) to try at home.

We will show you how if you like 'cause we are great scientists!