Weight

Today we used a balance to find the weight of common objects using non-standard units of weight (cubes, pencils and lollipop sticks).

We really enjoyed estimating first before we tried weighing.

Water investigations and the Water Cycle

We have been learning a lot about water (and water pollution, weather and the water cycle).

Today we did some water investigations and some water demonstrations.

First of all we did a water cycle demonstration.

We half filled a cup with water, and marked the level on the cup.

We covered this with cling film and left it on the radiator.

We hoped that some of the water would evaporate, that the water vapour would hit the cling film and would condense into water droplets, and that it would fall again as drops of water (precipitation).

We left the water on the radiator, and by home time we could see the water cycle in action.

We were very impressed!

Making a cloud

We can make our own clouds in a bottle.

You need to put cold water into a bottle, then empty it out again.

Light a match and drop it into the bottle.

Squeeze the bottle.

Nothing happens.

When you stop squeezing the bottle, hey presto, you have a cloud in the bottle.

How does this work?

Clouds are formed when water droplets in the air cool and then collect on dust particles. In this demonstration, the dust particles were provided by the smoke from the match. The air inside the bottle was cooled by releasing the pressure after the bottle was squeezed.

We were delighted to be able to make our own clouds!

Diving and resurfacing jellyfish

A water investigation:

Can we get a jellyfish to sink, and then resurface?

Teacher has a jellyfish.

When we put it in a bottle of water it floats.

We think that this is because the head of the jellyfish is full of air.

Teacher wanted us to get the jellyfish to sink to the bottom and to resurface again.

What could we do?

We could shake the bottle, push the jellyfish with our fingers, roll the bottle, tilt the bottle OR  ???

We figured that if we squeeze the bottle the air in the head of the jellyfish would become a little squashed (or compressed).

This would allow some water to get into the head and be heavy enough to sink the jellyfish.

Now to make him resurface again........

Stop squeezing the bottle and the air will have space to expand again, push the water out of the head of the jellyfish.

Now the jellyfish can swim to the top again.

If you have no jellyfish, teacher showed us a way to make a diver of our own from a lid of a pen, a paper clip and an elastic band.  This works just as well as the jellyfish!

Bath Tricks

Did you know that you can empty a bottle quicker by making a whirlwind in the bottle?

That way the water stays around the outside of the bottle, while the air can rush in through the middle and push the air out quicker!

Did you know that air is all around us pushing against things?

Air pushing against a piece of card can even stop water escaping from a cup!

This is really worth trying!

Chinese New Year

It is Chinese New Year on January 28th this year.

It is the year of the rooster!

We made some lovely Chinese Dragons.

They are on display outside our classroom.

Floating Fruit

We did a little experimenting with fruit today.

We found out that:

Oranges with their skins on will float,

Peeled oranges sink,

Peeled orange segments sink,

An orange segment with the skin on will float.

Orange peels float.

Bananas with their skins on will float,

Peeled bananas will float but

Banana peels sink!

Apples float!

Marla rolled in a ball (a sphere) will sink but

Marla flattened out and given curved sides will float.

In fact, it floats so well that we were able to add passengers (dried peas).

We would love to try other different types of fruit at home to investigate what floats or sinks.

Peace Proms

Some of us were in Dublin yesterday with Ms. Lally for a practice of the Peace Proms.  It was so much fun.  We are such good singers.  We can't wait for the actual performance on February 4th in Dublin.

Help with costumes

Pop Up Penguins

We had fun in art, making pop-up penguins.

They are enjoying catching fish!

Light sources and reflectors

We have been learning about light sources and reflectors.

Light sources give off light which we can see in the dark.

Reflectors do not: Reflectors only work when a light shines on them.

Reflectors don't work in the dark without a light shining on them.

We tried this out today.

We used a dark box, put an object in it, guessed whether the object is a reflector or light source, shut the lid and had a look.

 Only the torch, the glow-in-the-dark stone and the flashing pen were light sources.

The others (including the mirror) were reflectors.

Did you know that the sun is a light source but the moon is not.

The moon reflects light from the sun; it is a reflector!