Clay leaf fossils

We went on a nature walk last Friday.

Today we made leaf fossils out of clay with the leaves we collected.

First of all we rolled our pieces of clay into a ball.

Next we flattened this ball of clay a little.

Then we pressed the leaf into the clay (the side with the veins next to the clay).

When we pulled off the clay we could see the imprint of the leaf left in the clay.

This is the way fossils are made.

Fingerprints, handprints and height.

We are talking about how each person in our class is special.

We all look very different from each other and every single one of us has unique fingerprints.

Each one of us is getting taller than we used to be.

Teacher measured each one of us, and now we can see our heights marked on the wall.

We all made handprints with paint in our books, and then teacher showed us how to take our fingerprints.

First of all we scribbled with a pencil on a little piece of paper.

Next we rubbed a finger in this scribble, until the finger turned black.

Then we stuck this finger down on a piece of sticky tape.

When we lifted our finger we were able to see our fingerprint, and we could stick this into our book with the sticky tape.

Last of all we examined our fingerprints with magnifying glasses.

Seeing a sneeze

We have been talking about our bodies.

Today we were talking about our lungs, and about how sneezes can spread germs.

Teacher showed us a model of our lungs, made from a plastic bottle (ribs), a yellow balloon (lung), and a purple balloon (diaphram).  When you push the diaphram in and squeeze the ribs, the air in the lung is pushed out of our bodies, but when you pull the diaphram and let the ribs expand the air rushes in to fill your lung.

We were really looking forward to seeing a sneeze in action.

For this we needed a big balloon.

Teacher put some cornflour into the balloon, then blew up the balloon.

We burst the balloon with a pin, and the cornflour went EVERYWHERE!!!

This is what happens when we sneeze without covering our mouth.
From now on we are going to sneeze into our elbows so as not to spread germs.
We will also be careful about washing our hands when we go to the toilet or pick our noses!

Nature walk and Bug hunting in September

Since the weather was so nice we went on an Autumnal nature walk and bug hunt.

We looked at some of the leaves that are falling off the trees in our school ground.

We found Sycamore, Ash and Horse Chestnut leaves.

We did some leaf rubbings with these.

We also went bug hunting at the back of the Senior school.  After talking about which bugs are insects (those with 6 legs) and those which are not, we looked under logs, in the grass, on the dry ground and in the trees for as many different kinds of mini beasts as we could find.

We really enjoyed looking at so many different kinds of little creatures.

Planting daffodils

It is a good time to plant daffodils.

Each of us dug a hole in the soil and placed the daffodil bulb in the hole with the roots facing downwards.

We can't wait to see our daffodils flowering next Spring.

After washing our hands, we even had time to catch up on our story reading while others got their turn to plant.

Recording weather in September

We have been keeping a record of the weather each day. 

 We record the type of day it is, what the temperature is at 1pm (often in the sun) and the amount of rain that fell during the school day.

We mark the calendar each day.

Today we made a pictogram of the data collected in September, and we plotted temperatures (though this wasn't as accurate because we forgot to record it some days)

Farmer Duck story

Visit from an electrician

One of the dads in our class is an Electrician.

Tony came to our class today to tell us all about his job.

With his wonderful assistant he was able to show us his tools and tell us lots of things about electricity.

Tony showed us how magnets work, and he told us how electricity can be made making magnets (he even brought us in an electromagnet to see).  

He showed us wires and pliers, and explained how electricity comes to our houses from the electrical generating stations.

Tony works with science every day in his job.

He taught us how to stay safe around electricity.

We really enjoyed Tony's talk today.
Thank you so much for such a wonderful presentation.

Road Safety

We have been learning all about road safety.

We joined in with all these great songs!

We are going to wear helmets on our bikes and wear seat belts in the car to keep ourselves safe.

Fun with Maths

 We have a lot of fun with our EDpaX Maths games on our whiteboard.

We use our number fans when we are guessing what the right answers are.

Making words with flowers

We are able to read lots of words that finish in _at and _ag.

Today we played a game where we had to fill in each petal with a letter that could make a real word with the two letters in the middle of the flower.

Morning activities

This week we are having fun each morning with Peppa Pig, Dinosaurs and farm animals, Mr & Mrs Potato Head, Indians and Sticklebricks.

Visit from a textiles technician

We had a wonderful visit from a mum in our class.

Kelly is a textiles technician in our local 3rd level GMIT.

She came to tell us all about her very interesting job today.

Although Kelly is more of an artist than a scientist she uses science every day at work.

Kelly works with all sorts of different textiles (materials) and different colours.  She works a lot with mixing colours to get other more exciting colours.  Kelly also teaches her students how to sew and she is great at fixing sewing machines.  She brought us some very interesting pieces of art that her students have made or she has made herself.

We love her job and were delighted to hear that it is a job for boys just as much as for girls.

We are so amazed that everyone seems to use some science in their work.

Thank you so much Kelly for such a wonderful talk today.

Launching rockets

We made air rockets this morning.

We were surprised to see that a rectangular card can turn into a cylinder,

and that a circular piece of card can turn into a cone.

Our rockets are made from a cylinder, a cone on the top and triangles for the fins.

Teacher had a big launcher so we could try launching the rockets.

Our best rocket flew 38 strides (we measured this with our feet).

We discovered that the rockets that started by pointing up, flew quite high but not very far.

The rockets that flew the furthest were the ones that pointed out at an angle.

We also saw a push rocket, a stomp rocket and a water rocket in action.

Pumping enough air into the rockets to make them fly well is hard work!

Visit from a product builder with Boston Scientific

 We have a mammy in our class who is a product builder with Boston Scientific.

Monica is not a scientist but she uses science in her work each day.

Monica explained to us how she works with the little metal components that are used by doctors to help make patients with cancer better.

She explained how each little piece must be well made and must be really really clean so it can be used in the patients bodies.

We think that Monica has a very interesting and very important job.

Thank you Monica for such an interesting talk today.