Beach and seaside exploration!

During some of the sunny days of early September all of us in first class went to the beach and explored the many wonderful things that exist at the seashore! we looked at different types of shells, we even found some mussels that were alive!

We were very good at building sandcastles and digging huge holes!! (photos to follow..)

Caterpillar and butterflies

We have been learning about the butterfly lifecycle recently and have made lots of interesting things based on this. One thing we made was a wheel which we created by cutting and pasting the stages of the lifecycle in order and then fixing on the cover so that we can talk about each stage individually. We decorated them then and brought them home to show our families!

Here below is a picture of the pupae that are left before they turned into.....

Butterflies!!!

Boat making - Volvo Ocean Race yachts!!

In anticipation of the Volvo Ocean race we created our very own boats! We'd great fun trying to see which ones floated best and how if we blew the sails it would move faster! We investigated many materials to see whether they would float or sink. First we predicted what would happen and then we tested them and recorded our results..which were sometimes surprising!

We also voted on our favourite type of boat/ships and recorded our results using a pictograph. The winner with 9 votes was the speed boat!

In art this week we painted our own pictures of what we think the boats will look like in the Volvo ocean race - looks like they'll be very colourful! :)

"Educate me" on space!

In January we had a man come in to us and explain the galaxy and all the planets that make it up. We got to look at lots of interesting stuff and we learnt all the names of the planets in the solar system : Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

Pancake / Shrove Tuesday

Yummy!!

Today we learned how pancakes are made, what ingredients you use and best of all we got to have some with our choice of topping...toffee (thanks Lisa!), maple syrup, sugar, lemon or honey!
We love pancake Tuesday!

Art and craft

We have been very artistic of late - we made boa constrictors to go along with our song.

For Valentines day we painted some cute hearts for our mums and dads AND we made them hearts from clay and painted them our choice of colours. Hope they liked them! :)

For winter time we created some polar bears and penguins and we discovered that they live at opposite ends of the earth! The polar bears live at the north pole (in the Artic) and the penguins live in the south pole (in the Antartic) ...It really is a pity that they'll never get to meet each other!

Christmas elf visit

Before Christmas the elves came from the North pole to say hello and see how all the boys and girls were! We sang songs and even did a dance for them!!

Children learning about the children in Uganda

Ugandan LINK Project

The children listened to many stories and songs by Ms Tierney and saw pictures from Uganda - they played with the dolls made from banana fibres and sang the songs that the children in Uganda sing each morning in school. It was so much fun!

Then we decided to create some nice parkly Christmas cards for the children sent via a courier so that they would get some post (they dont have post there usually).

Thanks Ms Tierney, we had a great day and learnt so much!

December & Christmas 08

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!



We've had such fun these last couple of weeks-



we made snowmen using a variety of materials, shiny gold angels, christmas tealights and decorations from clay which we painted, rainy day umbrellas, as well as colouring lots of lovely Christmas pictures!



The children attended a junior infant, 1st and 2nd class play and sang so sweetly at the carol service on Wednesday night. Well done boys and girls!



Then on Friday Santa even stopped by to say hello!!!

Art - Snails using clay and paint

The children created some beautiful snail creatures out of clay & have painted them. They also created some silvery trails to display them on. They look just like the real thing now!!

Science week

This week is the Science and technology week and we have been learning lots of fun & exciting things through science investigations at school.
We have watched our cress seeds growing, they've gotten really tall lately! To see if the plants need sunlight as well as water we've placed one well watered plant in a dark cupboard. We will check it in a few days to see if it has changed.

We have also continued to measure & record the rainfall this week using the rain gauge, as well as using symbols on our class calendar.

The celery sticks that were placed in the red, orange and clear water have all turned the colour of the water! This proves that plants take up water through the stalk to the leaves & we have looked at the little capillaries that carry it.

Bubble show

We attended a bubble show in the Education centre too..we learnt all about the colours of the rainbow and how they are present in a bubble. The children got really got at predicting when the bubble was goign to pop based on the colours they could see.
We learnt that a bubble always takes the 3D shape of a sphere. It was really amazing to see such big bubbles filled with smoke!
The walk to and from the centre was also great as it helped us to see & talk about all the buildings & nature that is near our school in Renmore. Hopefully we can do this again sometime!!

Rain gauge

We are measuring the amount of rainfall for the month of November using a rain gauge which we have placed outside our classroom.

So far we have collected 25mm! We have predicted that we will collect a lot more in the coming weeks!!

Growing plants

The children are trying to grow their own plants in the classroom. Each group has a cress seed jar where they must ensure that the seeds are kept moist and cared for.

We cant wait to see the cress seeds grow!

Water week

The children know that all living things need water and since it rains a lot in Ireland we could be said to be quite lucky! :)

The children are investigating the way in which plants take up water into their leaves.

We are using celery and some red and yellow dyed water to do so. We cant wait to see the celery in a few days. Some think that it might turn red!!

Winter is here!!

We have a "Winter table" set up in our classroom which helps us to remember all the things that happen in this season. The children are wearing warmer clothes. They are going to try to feed the animals that did not go into hibernation, especially the birds.

Sense of Taste

The children explored their sense of taste. We looked at our tongues and tried to find our taste buds! Then we tasted some bitter, salty, sweet and sour foods. It was great fun!!

"Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater"

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,

Had a wife and couldn't keep her,

He put her in a pumpkin shell,

And there he kept her very well!!

Science Experiment

The scientists in Ms Dillons Junior infants class performed an experiment this week - they investigated why raisins dance in fizzy water as opposed to still water, and recorded the results using diagrams.

We really enjoyed this experiment!

Witches walk

This week all of the children in the junior school in Renmore turned into scary halloween characters!! We went on a walk around the local area and tried to scare some of the people who live near by ... we made some very spooky noises!

Take a look at Ms. Dillons junior infants who were particularly really scary!!!!