Our new class toy

We have a toy that visits the home of each child in the class.  The next morning we get to tell the class what the toy did at our house. This is a very good language game.  We talk about our toy at home, both in English and in Irish.  We even answer questions like "An raibh Dino ag ithe?" etc.

We started with Len, who disappeared in one home, and never came back.  He was replaced by that boy with Wowie, who disappeared in a girl's home.  Now she brought us in Dino.  We love him, and hope he'll come to school every day and not get lost in anyone's home.

Litter picking on National Tree Day

Witch Masks

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

We painted witch masks yesterday.  We stuck cardboard on the back of the masks.  Today we cut out the masks, and teacher stuck a skewer on the back of each one.  We are delighted with them.  Some of them look scary and others just look great.  When teacher hung them on the line at the window, then lowered the blinds, the sunlight shone through the eyes and it looked a bit spooky!!!  We are getting ready for Halloween at the end of this month.

Toys from our past

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

Our baby toys

 We have been talking about toys from the past.  We brought in toys that we played with when we were babies, and some toys that we play with now.

Toys we play with now

Teacher showed us toys from long ago, on the whiteboard http://www.museumeducation.bedford.gov.uk/bedfordbytes/toys/images_toys/gallery_toy_photos/index.htm These are the kinds of toys that our grandparents played with long ago.

More Number Activities

Teacher's prize

Thursday, September 29th, 2010

Teacher was not at school on Thursday or Friday. She told us she was going to London to get a prize for being a great teacher of.......well, we thought it was for teaching kids, but actually it was for teaching lots of science. She took plenty of photographs so we can see what it was like.

1. Are you wondering who all these people are? The numbers on the photos help to explain:
   A rainbow that teacher saw from the window of the plane. All rainbows are a perfect circle, but usually we can just see them as an arc. From above you can see the rainbow as a perfect circle. This is teacher's first time to ever see this. She was amazed!
2. Teacher's aeroplane (very like the pictures you drew on Wednesday!)
3. Waterford airport (where teacher's plane landed just for a short stop) - airports come in all sizes, this one is a small one!
4. Teacher getting her award from Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, president of the Institute of Physics in Britain.
5. Another picture of teacher getting her award "Teacher of Primary Science 2010"
6. Teacher with Professor Robert Bowman, chairman of the Institute of Physics in Ireland, and Mrs. Clare Thomson of the Institute of Physics in Britain.
7. Teacher with three "Teachers of Physics 2010" award winners - Priyankara Gunawardena of Liverpool College, Britain, Diarmaid Hickey of Coachford College in Cork, and Noel Cunningham of King's Hospital 'School in Dublin.
8. Teacher's certificate and award .
9. Teacher with Professor Brian Cox who won an award for bringing physics to everyone with his famous TV series about the solar system.

Video to be seen at http://www.blip.tv/file/4215837  or   at   http://www.iop.org/resources/videos/people-and-events/page_45063.html
News article from the Institue of Physics in Ireland at http://irish.iop.org/News/news_41614.html
See the account of the event on the Discover Primary Science newsletter http://www.primaryscience.ie/resources_enewsletter_edition21_art5.php
Other information from IOP is at http://www.scienceday.org/about/awards/additional/primary/winners/page_45060.html
Article from Galway Advertiser 21/10/10 http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/32364
From the Galway Science and Technology Festival 2010 brochure http://www.galwayscience.ie/news/jane-mcloughlin-awarded-teacher-primary-science-award-2010
From St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra http://www.spd.dcu.ie/main/news/JaneMcLoughlin.shtml
From the IOP Ireland newsletter http://www.iopireland.org/News/newsletter/file_41697.pdf
Galway Science and Technology Festival 2010 http://www.galwayscience.ie/2010-galway-science-technology-festival-person-of-the-year/

Visit from a Nurse

Maths: Data: Pictogram of September weather

Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Every day this month we have watched the weather. We recorded whether it was sunny, cloudy, rainy, wet, cold, snowy or windy. We also used a thermomether to take the temperature at 1pm each day, and used a rain gauge to record the morning's rainfall. Today we made a tally of the different types of weather, then we made a pictogram of our results. It looks like this:
We had a chat about which type of weather we had most, least, what would our chart probably look like if it was a winter or summer chart rather than an autumn chart. We love recording the weather every day!

Rocket science

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
We went to the field today to launch rockets. We needed a bottle, water, a bicycle pump, a valve and wings for the rocket. We took turns at pumping the rocket, and running after it. We could figure out which way the wind was blowing, by where the rocket flew. When we pumped lots of air in the bottle, the pressure made the valve pop out, and the rocket flew (the water came out as it flew). We tried launching the rocket with no water in it. It launched, and flew higher but not as far. Launching rockets is great fun.

Painted bins!

Monday, September 27th, 2010

We painted bins today. They look so nice. This is to tie in with our talks about recycling. Tomorrow (hopefully) we'll cut them out, put rubbish in them and put them on backing paper. They will look so nice. Keep an eye out for an update on this!

The bins are painted, and filled with rubbish. Teacher hung lots of our art in the corridor just outside the classroom. When she was done, our class went on a trip - to the art gallery (the corridor) where we had fun looking at the artwork, and admiring our own. It felt like a trip to a real gallery, and we felt very famous with our artwork on show!

Eggs from the caterpillars!!!

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Our caterpillars seem to have laid eggs!!! We have cabbage white caterpillars in school. We feed them cabbage leaves, and sprinkle the leaves with a little water each day. The caterpillars seem very happy in their new home. Some of the caterpillars seem to have laid eggs (we didn't know they could do that! we thought it was the butterfly that lays the eggs). Anyway, we are waiting patiently for some cocoons, then butterflies. We hope it's not too cold for them these days.
After some searching on the internet, teacher discovered that caterpillars can't lay eggs!
The answer seems to be that the eggs are injected into them by a parasitic wasp which hatch then eat the caterpillar from the inside out before crawling out (they really look like eggs!) We will have to keep a good watch on these eggs and see what happens!
Check out this article for more information http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/alien-empire/caterpillar-wasps/3415/

All about my lungs

Free play time

Friday, September 24th, 2010
In the mornings when we come into school we have free play time. It is our time to choose which toy or activity we would like to play with, and which friends with which to play. It is a great time for us to play pretend games, use the games on the computer, construct toys for ourselves, or to draw or write stories. We love this time together. Please make sure we are on time for school so we don't miss any of this free play time.

Safety First

Thursday, September 22nd, 2010We have been talking about safety. We watched and sang some fun safety songs (you can see them in the links on the History and Geography page). Some of the safety tips we talked about were

• playing away from roads, keeping our eyes and ears open when crossing roads
• wearing bright clothes and reflectors so cars can see us
• walking on paths, not on the road
• wearing seat belts and travelling in car seats or booster seats in the car
• not letting mum or dad talk on the phone when driving

We alway STOP, LOOK, LISTEN, THINK before we cross the street.

Stop, look and listen

Before you cross the street

Use your eyes, use your ears

Then use your feet!

Reading big books

Wednesday, September 21st, 2010

Teacher has lots of big books. We love listening to these stories, and we like it even more when we can read (or look at the pictures of) these books ourselves.

Autumn paintings

Medtronic Scientist

Cabbage White caterpillars

Shadows and Rainbows

What happened to Froggy, our classroom frog?

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

We got an email from Kay (our garden expert) this morning. She released Froggy (our tadpole who turned into a frog in our classroom last June) back home into the pond he came from. Today she sent us a photo of Froggy, relaxing in his pond. He has grown to be a fine frog. We are soooooo proud of him. Thank you Kay, for keeping us updated on his progress. Check out how much he has grown by looking at last year's articles on: http://scoilchaitrionajnrscience.blogspot.com/2010/06/froggy-and-wiggy-go-home.html

and http://scoilchaitrionajnrscience.blogspot.com/2010/06/froggy-our-new-frog.html and
http://scoilchaitrionajnrscience.blogspot.com/2010/05/tadpoles-with-legs.html and
http://scoilchaitrionajnrscience.blogspot.com/2010/05/living-lifecycles-bugs-in-classroom.html

Number Activity time

Room 5: Instrumental time

Autumn art: Autumn tree

Baby clothes line

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

We have been talking about when we were babies, what we looked like, what we were able to say/do/eat. We have brought some of our baby photos and our baby clothes and things to school so we could all have a look at the things we used when we were tiny babies. We have grown a lot since then, and can do so much more. The stories of us as babies are all history stories - stories of (not so) long ago.

Fruits veg and flowers from our garden

Counting Stick

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010We use the counting stick in Maths, for practicing saying our numbers between 0 and 10. Each number has its place on the stick, and we say the number as teacher (or a helper) points to the stick. It is fun saying our numbers like this. We can also tell teacher which number comes before or after another, or which number is in between two numbers.