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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Bottle Bank

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 We have been talking about recycling. Today we visited the bottle bank to see if we could figure out what goes in each recycling bin. At school we try to reduce litter by bringing reusable bottles and lunch boxes, by taking our lunch rubbish home and by not littering. We reduce the amount of water we use by pushing the green button on the toilets, and by switching taps off after us.

Magical Glass

Magical Glass
Tuesday, 21st October, 2008
We got a cup. It was full of air. We put some tissue at the bottom of the cup. Now there was tissue and air in the cup. We then plunged the cup (upside down) in a basin of water.
We had to guess does the tissue get wet or stay dry.
We felt the tissue. It was dry each time. Why?
When we put the cup into the water, no water can get in because of the air that is in there already. With no air in the cup, the tissue always stays dry. We all felt the tissue to be sure.

Bug Spray

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
In Room 5 we made a spray. We got a cup of cold water and two straws. When we put one straw into the water the water comes up part way in the straw.If we take the other straw and blow across the top of the straw in the water, the air in the straw in the cup gets pushed out, followed by the water which squirts out after it.All sprays work in the same way.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Tissue Goal

Friday, October 17th, 2008
Another investigation using air: Is it possible to blow a ball made from tissue into a goal made from an empty shampoo bottle? This is what happened when we tried:
We had a ball of tissue sitting in the mouth of a bottle. When we blew the tissue, it flew out of the bottle instead of being pushed in. Why? When we blow at the tissue, most of the air goes around the tissue, hits the back of the bottle, and comes back out again (after bouncing off the back of the bottle). This pushes the tissue out of, rather than into the bottle. We can make the tissue ball go into the bottle, by blowing right at it using a straw.

Hot air and a floating ball

Friday, October 17th, 2008
Today we tried an interesting investigation using hot air (from a hair dryer). We tried holding a table tennis ball over a hair dryer. The rising hot air keeps the ball floating in the air, with the help of gravity so the ball doesn't fly out of the air stream. This experiment doesn't work with a heavy bouncy ball because this is too heavy for the air to lift, or with a light foam ball since this ball is too light to stay in the warm air flow so it gets knocked over very quickly.

St. Brigit's Garden

Friday, 17th October, 2008
Today Senior Infants Rooms 5 and 7 went on tour to St. Brigit's garden. The weather was nice and we had a wonderful day.
When we got to the garden we split up into two groups. Our class was shown around the garden by a very nice guide called Will. Will told us all about sunflowers, sunflower seeds and the woodland animals that eat the seeds - robins, squirrels and field mice.
Next we went through a willow walk, past the sandpit and into a crannóg.

We talked about what shape the crannóg is, and what it would have been like to have lived there with no window, no electricity, no toilets and maybe having to share our home with our animals.
After being inside a little while, we went outside to search for nuts and other autumn treasures. We found lots of hazel nuts, lovely coloured leaves, mushrooms, and even a huge slug! We went inside another crannóg and made a lovely autumn collage with the treasures we had found, then played a great woodland creature game with a parachute and some balls (which we pretended were nuts). After being outside so long we each had a quick turn on the basket swings and then went inside for our lunch.
After lunch we went searching for minibeasts in the pond. We used nets to fish for the minibeasts and used magnifying glasses and keys to identify what we found.
We finished up our tour by using musical instruments to summon the Autumn Queen (who looked a bit like Ms. Gordon from Room 7). The queen led a parade to her throne where she sat and admired her loyal subjects!!!
Our tour was great fun and we learned lots. We can't wait to go back there again.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Visit from a Chef

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 One of the girls in our class has a mum with a very interesting job. She is a chef in a hotel. She came to our class today to tell us all about being a chef. She made and brought with her a rose made from an apple. It looked and smelled wonderful.
First of all Hau told us all about keeping our hands clean, when and how we should wash our hands, and how dangerous it is to touch food with dirty hands….that is how we can pick up germs. Next she showed us how to make a lovely strawberry meringue dessert. You need meringues, cream, and chopped up strawberries and grapes. We all tried too (after we washed our hands of course)!

Monday, October 6, 2008

Balloon car and rocket


Monday, October 6th, 2008
We are talking about forces, about air in particular. First of all we tried to fly a balloon straight to teacher. It was impossible. Lots of people tried to do it.
Next, teacher showed us her balloon car. We had to guess which way the car would move when the air was let out of the balloon. We discovered that the car moves in the opposite direction from the way the air escapes.
What we really wanted to do was to make a balloon fly straight to teacher. We tried taping the balloon to a piece of string but that didn't work. The balloon couldn't fly, it just spun round and round the piece of string. Finally we discovered that if we taped the balloon to a straw and put the string inside the straw, that the balloon would fly straight along the string. We even discovered that the balloon could fly uphill and downhill, just by having the string held at different heights. It was a very exciting investigation.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Green Schools - Litter Picking

There is a lot of rubbish around our school. Some of it blows in from the road, and I'm afraid some of it is dropped by our own pupils and parents. Today we went out to see how much rubbish could be found by room 5. We got about half of a big rubbish bag. We picked it up using pickers and gloves. We will be careful to watch out for litter from now on and to put our rubbish in the bin.