Christmas Fun in Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have arrived in a magical classroom as we enter the festive period. There was huge excitement when they came to school and saw lights and tinsel and lots of Christmas themed play opportunities in their room!

Our Christmas angel and tree are great for exercising our fine motor skills.

We are learning all about the first Christmas and have a play opportunity where we can explore and recreate the story of Christmas.

Our Santa’s workshop roleplay area is a hive of activity. It is filled with busy elves who are designing, constructing, sorting, wrapping, labelling and stacking all the gifts for Santa this year!

Active Advent Calendar

Our wonderful Active Committee created some active advent calendars for all of our classes. It’s our active take on the advent calendar. Each day in the lead up to Christmas we will be tasked with completing an active challenge. These challenges were chosen by our active committee and they range from taking 5 minutes of extra break, dancing to our favourite Christmas songs and running laps around the school.

STEM in Senior Infants

Senior infants were given the STEM challenge to make a Play-doh boat that could float.

Firstly, we wondered if a ball of Play-doh would float. Therefore, we decided to test that out first. For this experiment, we needed a container of water and some Play-doh. We worked together in small groups and some of us predicted that a ball of Play-doh would sink while others predicted that it would float. We found that a ball of Play-doh that was gently placed into a container of water, sank straight away.
We thought that the ball of Play-doh sank because it was too heavy but we predicted that the Play-doh would float when it was shaped like at boat. Again we worked together in small groups and we found that it was best to spend a lot of time shaping our boats and making sure that there were no holes in them, otherwise they would sink! We also found that the Play-doh didn't work as well if it was left in the water for too long.
Some of our boats were successful and they could even hold some marbles! We enjoyed adding in marbles one by one, while practicing our counting skills, until the boats sank. One boat could even hold 13 marbles before it sank which we were all very excited about!

Melting Ice

Senior Infants observed ice melting. We noticed that the ice was melting very quickly at room temperature and when we placed it into our warm hands it melted at an even faster rate. We then talked about how the ice caps are melting in the Arctic and that even though polar bears can swim, they need to rest on the ice caps sometimes too. We played a game like musical chairs to help us understand. We all pretended that we were polar bears and when the music stopped we all stood on an 'ice cap' (piece of paper). By the end of the game, almost all of the ice had melted and there was only 1 polar bear left.

Ashford Yarn Bombing

Some members of the Ashford community are working together to create decorative pieces made from wool and yarn to decorate the village. Nun’s Cross are delighted to take part in this community initiative and each class has been working hard to create a contribution to the project. Keep an eye out for our colourful creations around the village in the coming weeks!

STEM in 2nd and 3rd Class

Today 2nd and 3rd class were given the challenge to build a bridge that could not only support the weight of a toy car, but would also allow the car to pass over from one side of the bridge to the other. The children all received the same materials to build their bridges; mini marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti.

In their groups, they children formulated a plan of how they would build their bridge. Some groups drew out their plans while others discussed. The children then began the building process.

The building process incorporated lots of mathematical exploration. The spaghetti needed to be broken by some of the groups to specific lengths, while other groups used their knowledge of fractions to split their spaghetti into halves and quarters. Some groups focused on the importance of shape in their building. One group started with many triangles as well as pyramids as they felt that they would be the strongest shape, while others went with squares, cubes and cuboids.

As the process went on, the groups were able to compare the effectiveness of the shapes and ideas they used. Some groups felt the need to edit their plan as the initial plan did not work in practice.

Once they had finished building the bridges, the groups tested the car’s ability to drive over the bridge. The car fit on the bridges as the groups had measured this carefully, but the movement of the car did cause additional challenges, but the groups found ways around these. One group had run out of time to finish the top of their bridge, so they built a tightrope walker that could move across the tightrope bridge they had built in the time.

The children were delighted to have the opportunity to show and explain their creations to the junior infants as part of our STEM showcase. 

Sustainable Energy

2nd and 3rd class have been learning about sustainable energy. With all the concerns about possible energy shortages in the news, we decided to look at some different power option that exist. We focused on wind turbines.

We learned a little bit about wind turbines and discussed the positives and negatives about them. We then explored how they work. We also had the opportunity to see photos of the inside of a wind turbine and were able to see how the wind power can be turned into electricity and stored. We then created our own windmills to allow us to see the wind power in motion.

Sock Bubbles

The children in 4th and 5th class had lots of bubbly fun this week blowing bubbles! But not just any old bubbles, sock bubbles!

The looked at how bubbles are formed using general liquid soap and water. The liquid soap spreads out with the water and helps the water to form a structure. Then their teacher introduced socks and asked the children to predict what they thought would happen if they tried to blow a bubble through the sock. Most children predicted that the bubbles would pop when they contacted the fabric so they decided to put it to the test!

Each child attached a sock to the end of a plastic bottle and soaked it in the liquid soap and water solution. When the children blew into the sock, lots and lots of small bubbles were created.

We discovered that the bubbles were each created between the tiny holes in the fabric of the sock and they all stuck together making a much stronger structure than a single bubble. We were able to challenge each other to see who could make the longest sock bubble and had loads of fun!

Paper Cup Challenge in Junior Infants

The junior infants were given a special task to end science week and put their creative engineering skills to the test.

In small groups the children were given a pile of paper cups and lolly pop sticks and asked to build the tallest tower they could with just the two materials. It took a while for the children to start thinking creatively but once they got going there was no stopping them!

Celery Experiment

In 1st class the children are exploring the process of plants absorbing water through their stems.

We have placed a stick of celery in a glass of water with some food colouring to see if we can observe what happens as the plant drinks the water.

We have had lots of interesting predictions so far:

1. Most children have predicted that the stem will change colour.

2. Some children think the leaves will.

3. Some think they will just die.

4. One child predicts that the celery will absorb the clean water and eliminate the food colouring somehow!

We will have to watch this space and see who, if anyone, is right!

Egg Drop Challenge

1st group were working on a tricky task this week. The class were given the task to try to design something which would protect an egg and prevent it from breaking when dropped from a height. Most groups predicted that this was an impossible challenge and that the eggs were all sure to break when dropped from a height.

The class was split into groups that had to work collaboratively to design something to protect their eggs. Each group had paper, straws, elastic bands, sellotape and glue. and they were allowed to choose whatever they wanted from the recyclables too.

To make sure it was a fair test, all the eggs would be dropped from 2 stories up. We had very impressive designs and the children considered lots of variables such as using light materials so the egg would fall gently and one group even took aerodynamics into account as they tried to design a parachute type design to slow the eggs fall.

We were thrilled to see that our predictions were totally accurate as we had a 50% success rate with 50% of the eggs not breaking!

Sugar Crystal Creation

Today 2nd and 3rd started their sugar crystal experiment. We learned how to start writing up experiments so wrote a list of the equipment, the predictions we had and then the method involved. We had lots of different predictions about what would happen, but we will have to wait a few more days to see if we managed to grow any crystals! Watch this space for our updates!

Refraction in Action

The children in 4th and 5th class were spellbound by fraction in action today.

The children drew a picture on a piece of paper and sealed it into a clear plastic pocket. They outlined their picture on the outside of the plastic bag and then placed in into a tub of water. What they observed was magic!

When the pictures went into the water the light was refracted as it passed through the liquid. The result was that the colour in their pictures appeared to disappear, as if by magic!

STEM in First class!

The boys and girls in 1st class were given a very tricky challenge today - to create a tower, using only spaghetti and marshmallows, that was as tall as possible and strong enough hold a packet of buttons. The task was very tricky and required lots of communication within the groups, forward planning and cooperation and team work! Well done to all the children and their efforts!

Cress Seeds Experiment

The children in Senior infants are investigating just what plants need to grow this week. After discussions, they decided that they need somewhere safe to grow with lots of light and water. We decided to put this to the test to see if we are right!

We planted 4 sets of cress seeds: 1 set which has no soil but has light and water, another which has no water but has soil and light, another set which has soil and water but no light and the last set has all variables present. We predict that the seeds that have water, soil and light will grow the best. What do you think? Check back to see how our seeds grow over the next two weeks to see if we are right!

The Aztecs

Our senior classes have been learning all about the Aztecs over the last few weeks.

The children have used their creative juices to create some very colourful Aztec inspired face masks.

While learning about the Aztecs, we learned about their chinampas - or floating gardens, and we decide to see if we could design our own. We used a variety of recyclable materials and created structures that not only needed to float, but needed to float while holding a large amount of soil inside. We used our school pond to test our chinampas to see if they would float and were delighted to see that most did!

Skittle Challenge

The Junior Infants had more fun today with exploring colours and colour mixing! We did the skittles challenge - a simple, yet fun experiment where adding water to skittle causes the colour in their shell to dissolve and creates a really amazing display of colours. You can hear the excitement in the children’s voices watching the colours run into each other and create a rainbow!

We made simple recordings of our findings from our experiment too. We noted what we saw at the start and what we saw at the end and used these to help us describe the changes!

Changing state of chocolate

The Junior Infants discovered that when we had heat to chocolate it melts! We made cookies of aliens and planets and decorated them with chocolate and sprinkles afterwards. We decided it would be easier to decorate them if the chocolate was melted so we heated it in the microwave and discovered that it turned from a solid into a liquid in the process. We had lots of fun decorating our cookies and we also discovered that the chocolate tastes just as good when its a liquid as it does when its a solid!

Compost Bins

The children in 5th and 6th have been learning about renewable and non renewable natural resources. Soil is non renewable but it can last for hundreds of years if cared for. We decided to make compost bins so show how we can care for the soil.

We recycled waxed cartons and created two translucent windows (so we can see what is happening Inside the carton). We added soil and some worms to help look after the soil and keep it in good condition. We ensured that each side had 3 air holes for the soil and worms to breathe. Once the bin structure was ready the children added in vegetable peelings they had brought in from home along with some grass. They were careful to layer the contents carefully to ensure that the materials were evenly spread throughout the bins. The last step was to place the worms on top.

We are looking forward to being able to observe the composting process first hand and we hope that it will inspire lots of you to also do this in your homes!

Rocket Launch

The children in 2nd and 3rd class were attempting to fly to space this week! The children have been working hard to design and create their very own rockets!

The children were all given the challenge to build and launch a rocket. To make it a fair test, each child had the same materials, 1 piece of paper and 1 paper straw, to build their rocket. The children tested different options before deciding on their designs. Once built, we tried launching the rockets outside. We discussed ways that we could make sure it was a fair test-all launching from the same height and angle. The children then took turns launching their rockets!