The Junior Infants are learning all about spring this month and as part of their topic they have been looking at the different parts of a flower. The looked at some real plants and saw the bulb, the roots, the steam, the leaf and the flower. We planted these flowers then outside our classroom so the bees can enjoy their nectar and we can enjoy their beauty!
Bright and early this morning a group of 27 5th and 6th class students boarded a bus to the RDS Simmonscourt to showcase our Science Blast Projects. Our project title was ‘can we design and make marble runs which last for 60 seconds exactly?’ Having worked on these projects over the past 5 weeks, we tried our best to take great care in transporting them to ensure they would work for the judges.
Science Blast is an initiative which is sponsored by the ESB and run by the RDS. This year 496 projects were submitted to the Dublin showcase, with other showcases taking place in Belfast and Limerick. There are 12,000 students participating throughout the country, with schools from 25 counties involved. The showcase is run over 4 days, where 200 judges appraise the work done by students in all participating schools. It is the younger sibling of the Young Scientist which runs for students in secondary school.
Once we arrived, we were immediately tasked with setting up our display and testing the projects to ensure they all survived the journey without damage. We were very pleased with how our display came together. We were then reminded of the rota for the stall as we had to ensure there was always a team at hand to woo the judges and visitors. On display, we had our projects for demonstration, our project progress folders and our group trailers on the process. It was clear to see that the children really stepped up to the mark and presented their projects excellently to all passing visitors. The confidence and courage shown by the students was highly commendable.
The general feedback we received was a sense of amazement at the projects and the amount of time, patience, perseverance and skill they all took. Lots of passing teachers were taking pictures and hoping to carry out a similiar challenge in their classes.
When the judges visited, we really did ourselves proud in presenting our work. It was a tense time as the judges did not take our word for the marble runs lasting 60 seconds, and they took our their phones to check up on our work.
One of the highlights of the day was when the ESB camera crew visited us. Luckily our boys who were on duty weren’t camera shy and represented us so so well. Well done boys :) We will be keeping an eye out on ESB social media to see if we make an appearance. But just incase we don’t …
There was a great atmosphere at science blast and we spent our free time arranging and enjoying pizza parties, visiting the exhibitions of other schools and participating in the presentations entitled ‘circus science’ and ‘invisible worlds’. We also got to visit some really cool exhibitors which were run by the ESB, the explorium and a quiet room etc. There were virtual reality stations and also numerous challenges where the children would win prizes.
As our second week of marble run engineering comes to an end, we are happy with our progress to date. Some groups began their projects from scratch this week as they learned the importance of a slow moving marble and the importance of slope, material and friction. Some groups have started working on the presentation of the marble runs, and others realised that we will have a limited amount of space to showcase our projects in the RDS. This will have a huge impact on what can be done within the limited space.
Tomorrow we will be showcasing all of our projects to the parents from 2.30 pm where we are hoping to get some ideas and feedback from parents to re-energise our efforts for next week.
This year, 5th and 6th class are taking part in Science Blast at the RDS on the 3rd of March. Our project challenge is ‘Can we design and make some marble runs which take 60 seconds to complete?"‘ This week we have started to get stuck in and explore some design features - taking into account friction, use of materials, momentum etc.
At this stage in our engineering journey, we are aware that the 60 seconds is a huge target to reach. It will be incredibly difficult and we had contemplated reducing this to a 30 second challenge which we may still do.
Take a look below at our progress to date.
The children had a lovely time making snow for this months small world. They worked together in groups using baking soda and hair conditioner to create a very life like representation! Great fun was had by all exploring and playing.
All this week, in celebration of science week, all children were working hard all week on a science experiment of their choice. The children got a chance at the end of the week to share their experiments with their friends. There were some explosions, including some unexpected ones, a few accidental spillages and numerous broken eggs throughout the day but the children did a great job at demonstrating their scientific knowledge! Well done to all the children for all their hard work and to all the teachers for their help with all the experiments throughout the day!
5th and 6th class were given the challenge of designing and making parachutes to take their boiled eggs to the ground safely. Before embarking on this challenge, we made sure all of eggs were boiled and we set the parameters for success and fair testing. We decided we all needed to drop the egg parachutes from the same height. This was agreed to be the classroom window - which is on the second floor.
We also decided to be kind for ourselves and agreed on the rule that successful completion of this task would result in homework passes being given to all members of successful teams. Eggs were carefully inspected at the beginning of the challenge and any cracks were noted.
Students worked in pairs to complete this challenge and 30 minutes were given to the students. We used a variety of junk art materials which were kindly given by parents of the students. Take a look at some of the action ….
The anticipation was immense.
We quickly scrambled downstairs to check for survivors …
In a number of cases casualties were noted.
However not all attempts were in vain.
This week in 4th class the students were given the challenge to design and make a magnetic boat that could float. We investigated and proved that magnets could attract certain materials through other materials such as water. We had great fun designing the boats and all our designs turned out so different.
The children from 1st-6th class had a visit from the SEAI this week and got to take part in some very interesting workshops.
The children talked about the ways in which energy is used and the different things they can do to save energy. They were introduced to Guzzler the puppet who wasn't very good at saving energy and desperately needed them to teach him, for example, by turning off the light when he leaves a room or turning off the television when he is not using it.
Individual children took turns to mime some of the different ways in which we use energy while the others guessed what they were doing for example, brushing their teeth, ballet dancing and playing sports. Some children were involved in a clothes dressing race where they were encouraged to put on an outfit over their own clothes, as quickly as possible, while the other children cheered them on. They then discussed how they had used energy, which generated heat and that this had warmed up their bodies. Guzzler then told the children that he 'ate sunshine'.
There were many puzzled faces at first but some children then demonstrated how the sun shines on plants and that when we eat plants, we harvest energy from the plants, that begun as sunlight. Guzzler had therefore 'eaten sunshine' because he had eaten the corn that had grown after being exposed to sunlight.
The children enjoyed the workshop and had great fun. There were smiles all round.
This week we have been learning about famous scientists who made an enormous contribution to the world we live in. Our understanding of the world and so many of the items we take for granted have been hugely influenced by the world of science. Take a look at some of the scientists whose lives and work we have studied. Can you guess their contribution to the world?
Today 5th and 6th class showcased our October projects. These were based on our SESE topics from October which included space, climate change and natural disasters. It is clear from the projects on display that Space Week had a big influence on project topic choice. We invited some classes to come and view our projects and our parents were also invited in at the end of the school day. Take a look at some of our great work below…
More pictures to follow shortly!
4th class wrote fantastic stories as part of their maths week celebrations and the rest of the classes got to enjoy a story session with them. Well done 4th class, your stories were fantastic!
The children in Seniors Infants and 1st Class had a great week exploring Maths in new ways. On Monday, we went outside and drew mazes on the basketball court - not as easy as it looked to get to the centre! The children worked together to figure out the best way.
Tuesday had us exploring Maths through trails. The children had to make shape pictures using leaves, find blocks and shapes and order objects from largest to smallest.
Wednesday saw us measuring trees - with our thumb! Who knew this was possible! But the tallest tree we found was over 100 feet! (The children’s feet!)
Thursday saw us finding shapes outside and matching these to real life objects - the school roof showed us triangles!
On Friday, 4th Class shared Maths stories that they wrote. These were so enjoyable and the children loved listening to them.
The children also made fantastic Maths Monsters for homework. Some were quite scary!
Well done to everyone!
Junior Infants have been learning all about 2D shapes during maths week this year. We have had great fun all week with lots of hands-on activities including; going on a shape walk around our school, making 2d shapes on our pegboards, tracing shapes in our copies, making pictures with shapes, solving 2d shape puzzles and making 2d shape monsters. We also got to go on a maths trail with help from our big buddies which was so much fun! Check out some pictures from our week
Maths Week 2019 got off to a flying start in 5th and 6th class. On Monday, 5th and 6th class completed some arrow mazes which took lots of figuring out. Once we had gotten to grips with these challenges, we had a go at designing our own for our classmates to solve. Take a look at some of our work below and see if you can solve them…
The Junior Infants have been exploring light and colour as part of their space topic. The have been looking at primary colours and how we use these colours to create new colours. We made colour wheels using our primary colours and mixing them to make secondary colours and put them together to make a cute display of our work!
5th and 6th class were celebrating EU code week today by taking part in some hour of code activities. Some of us worked on choreographing characters to dance along with music, while others explored problem solving to escape from various challenge rooms.
This year we are aiming to present projects at the end of each month in 5th and 6th class, and gosh did we kick the year off in style. For September our topic of focus in history, science and geography was the local area and the human body. This afternoon we showcased our projects to the families of the children. For term 1 we are working in groups to complete these projects and it was great to see that groups worked together to incorporate each member’s strengths.
Take a look at the work which was on display…
The Junior Infants have begun the very exciting topic of Space for the month of October. They are exploring the concepts of light and dark, shadows, colours, planets stars and even aliens! We are working hard on working together and our space jigsaws are the perfect activity to encourage team work. We are creating some very creative space pictures. Our imagination knows no bounds in our moon setting small world area and we forget we are not really in space when we dress up as astronauts in our role play area. Take a look at some of the very exciting Aistear activities so far!
