Gardening in our class

Our broad bean plants have grown too big for their little pots so today we repotted them into bigger pots. It's lovely to see them grow so big. It was a very messy job but we cleaned up really well after ourselves.May 11th: Look at the broad bean plant now. It has lovely white and purple flowers.

Working with Magnets

Teacher has lots of magnets in the class. We can use them every day, but today we had a good look at the magnets. We had magnet stations - 5 different tables doing 5 different things. We got a chance to try the different stations. At one station we had to guess, then test, what things in the classroom magnets will stick to. We recorded our results on a big sheet of paper.At the next station we had red and blue magnets that had North and South on them. We had to guess, then try, what happens when you put North and South together (they attract each other). Then we tried North with North and South with South (they repel). We tried this on dowel rods with purple and yelllow magnets too.At the third station we had to guess, then test, what a magnet will work through. We found that magnets work through pencil cases, clothes, tables, chairs, books, paper, baskets and lots more. We recorded our results on a big sheet of paper.At the fourth station we made our own magnets with steel nails. The nails were not magnetic at the start (and if they were, we dropped them on the floor so they lost their magnetism). We magnetised each one by rubbing a magnet off the nail. We then tested to see whether it was magnetic by picking up a paper clip with the nail. This worked really well.At the last station we made magnetic car racing tracks. We drew racing tracks and put a magnet underneath each one, and a paper clip on top. We got our cars (paper clips) to run along the track by moving the magnet underneath.Such a lot of cool things you can do with magnets!!!

Greenwave - Looking at Horse Chestnut buds

Friday, March 20th: We have a Horse Chestnut tree beside our school. We are watching it closely. The Horse Chestnut buds are just about to bloom. We can already see the leaves inside the sticky buds.
Monday, March 23rd: the Horse Chestnut buds are out and the tree looks so alive!
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 The leaves are really becoming green now.

Room 5 at the Beach

The weather is lovely so we went for a walk to the beach.

At the beach Seán (our Junior Achievement guest) read us a lovely story, then we went digging for treasures, finding all sort of marine life and playing in the sand.

On our way back we took a look at the old pump and the tunnel under the railway.

Bubbles galore

Today we went out to the field to have a good look at bubbles.

We looked at their colours, guessed when they were about to burst, tried to catch them and tried all sorts of ways to make bubbles. We tried different sized wands, and made different sized bubbles. We even figured out which way the wind was blowing. We learned lots about bubbles, and we enjoyed the glorious weather outside.

Hawthorn Buds

The Hawthorn trees are blooming at last. We are keeping an eye on them as part of our Greenwave project.

A Geologist in the school

Ronan's (from Room 7) Dad is a geologist. He knows lots and lots about rocks. He came to our school to tell us all about rocks and about being a geologist. He showed us lots of interesting rocks and told us what things around us come from rocks. It was such an interesting talk. We found our own stones and rocks in the school yard. We love the colours and patterns in the stones.

The Lifecycle of the frog

We have been looking closely at the frog spawn teacher saw.
This is what it looked like on Sunday, March 1st.

Now some of the tadpoles have emerged from the frog spawn.

This is what they looked like on Wednesday, March 11th. It is really amazing watching them grow.March 16th. This is Toby. He is our strongest tadpole. He loves swimming surrounded by the frogspawn that will soon turn into more tadpoles - friends for Toby.

April 3rd, 2009. These are Mrs. Geraghty's tadpoles. She is feeding them fish food and lettuce. They seem to love it. They are happy tadpoles!

On April 20th, our tadpoles have grown a lot. They now have back legs, eyes and the beginnings of front legs. We can even see toes. They swim really fast now. They love their dinners of lettuce leaves and fish food.