Mathematical Bugs

Thursday, April 30th, 2009 We had a great maths lesson on sorting, using our collection of bugs. We sorted the bugs into lots of different groups according to
type of bug
colour of bug
good or bad bugs
live in Ireland or not
whether they are plain or multicoloured
whether they are insects or not
whether they can fly or not It was a great chance to talk about bugs, and to practice our sorting, all at the same time.

Senses - Touch

Thursday, April 30th, 2009
Today we tried using our sense of touch. Teacher had a feeley bag, into which she put one of these items: a rubber, carpet, cardboard, sandpaper, wood, a balloon, sponge, cling film plastic and fabric. The class got to ask questions about whether the object is rough/smooth, hard/soft, warm/cold, where we could find the object and what the object could be used for. The child holding the feeley bag answered the questions and gave hints if it was too hard to guess. It is hard to guess objects using only our sense of touch.

How well can we tell smells

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Today teacher challenged us with a smelling test. Yes, it was a smelling test and not a spelling test! She had three containers. We had to smell each and tell teacher what we thought was in each. Here are the results:Of the 21 children in our class, 8 correctly guessed one smell (not the same smell was guessed by each child though). No one correctly guessed either two or three of the substances though.
In container 1 there was vinegar. (6 correct guesses). Some of the incorrect guesses were: sour, oil, lemon.
In container 2 there was vanilla essence. (No one guessed this). Some incorrect guesses were: medicine, chocolate, coke, juice, coffee, syrup.
In container 3 there was lemon wash-up liquid (2guessed correctly). Some incorrect guesses were: pear, oil, fizzy orange, juice, soap, orange juice, vinegar, perfume.It's amazing how hard it is to correctly identify smells that are so familiar if you can't see its original container!

Kite Flying

Monday, April 27th, 2009
We spent lots of time today and on Friday making kites. First we had a look at some kites from around the world, then we made our own. We each got a big piece of white paper and folded it into triangles and rectangles. We cut off the unwanted rectangles with our scissors. Next we folded our triangle in half again, making a smaller triangle. When we opened this out we had a fabulous diamond!Designing and painting came next. That was an interesting job. Before this all the kites looked identical, but now each kite was unique. Tails had to be made too.

Teacher gave each of us a plastic strip and we used the spare rectangle pieces to make triangle shaped bows for the tail.Since the weather was nice, we did the constructing outside. We used bamboo skewers, string and sticky tape to finish off the kites.

They looked great.

Now for the testing.

The weather was perfect - sunny but windy, so we headed to the field next to the school for the flight trials. The kites needed a good run to get them flying. Some of them flew so well. Unfortunately not all of them survived so well - some needed repairs. Making kites is a wonderful experience. Why not try it out for yourself?

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Monday, April 27th, 2008
Our caterpillars arrived by post this morning. We are thrilled. We noticed that they came with their own food, so we don't need to gather leaves and flowers for them. The food looks like a brownish grey lump of hard jelly, it looks awful but the caterpillars must like it! We named our caterpillars Colourdy, Crawly, Floppy, Patch and Poppy. It is hard to tell which one is which. We can't wait to see them grow. We will leave them at school where it is quite warm, and we will take great care not to shake their container.
One week later: Tuesday, May 5th. Haven't they grown a lot in a week. They have also make lots of webs in the container, and we can see at least 10 (2 each) skins that they have discarded as they grow bigger.
One week later: Monday, May 11th. The caterpillars are so big now. We are wondering when they will make their cocoons.
Exciting News: Today, Thursday, May 14th, our caterpillars have begun to hang off the top of their pot. We think they will be in their cocoons very soon. Friday, May 15th. One of the caterpillars is in his (or her) cocoon. We think the others will change very soon. Not sure about one caterpillar who is just lying on the bottom of the container and not trying to change.
Monday, May 18th. All 5 caterpillars are in their cocoons (although one is not hanging from the top). Teacher cut them into individual parts and stuck them onto some card. She made a special holder for the cocoon that wasn't stuck to the top. Now they are all safely in their pop up butterfly garden. We wonder how long it will take for them to turn into butterflies?



Our first butterfly emerged yesterday, on Sunday, May 31st. We think that it is Poppy. Today, Monday, June 1st, 3 more butterflies emerged (Colourdy, Crawly and Patch). We are now just waiting for one (Floppy).They like to drink sugared water (which we left on a tissue for them), and eat fresh flowers (we have given them dandelions). In case they are really hungry, we also left a slice of orange, banana, nectarine and kiwi. We think they will really enjoy the fruit. Now we have to wait for about 2 or 3 days until their wings grow stronger. Then we will release them to go and start their own families.

Setting up a wormery

Teacher found 18 worms in her garden last night, and she brought them to school to show us. We got a wormery ready for them. We put layers of soil and sand in the wormery, then added the worms (they were all sizes, shapes and colours), then some grass and leaves for them to eat. We know that worms don't like light. We saw them trying to get to the bottom of the wormery as soon as we put them in. (The bottom is safer for them, further away from birds). We hope that the worms will make tunnels through the soil and sand, so that we can see what way worms live in the soil. We might even try making our own wormeries at home.

Strange sounds

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

We were talking about sounds today. We found out about sound waves, and how they travel through the air. We tried making some strange sounds. One of our girls showed us how to make strange sounds with a balloon. By pulling the neck of the balloon when the air is escaping, the sound it emits is very funny. Teacher showed us how to make strange sounds with plastic, paper and grass, and we all tried making sounds with straws. We found out that if you cut a straw when you are blowing it, that the note it makes gets higher as the straw is cut.
Next the teacher had a cup with a piece of string coming out. If we pull the string it sounds as if there is a woodpecker in the cup. The noise of the string being pulled is amplified when the string is atttached to the cup.
Last of all we got to use string telephones. They are very easy to make - all you need is string and 2 yoghurt cartons. One end of the string is put through a hole in the carton, and tied. The other end of the string is tied through another carton. If you want to talk through the telephone, you must keep the string tight. Otherwise the sound waves can't travel from one yoghurt pot to the other. We really enjoyed learning about sound today.

Spider in our Class

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

We found a huge spider in our class. She has made a web in an old water cup, and doesn't want to come out, so we put a bug finder lid on the cup, and we have been having a good look at our spider. This is what we found out: Our spider has 8 legs, so she is not an insect. She has spots on her back and hairs on her legs. Each leg seems to be made of 4 segaments. She has two hairy feelers and big black hairy eyes. She has a black and grey body, but her legs are brown. She mostly likes to sit still on her web.

Greenwave - Looking at Ash buds

Even though we are on holidays from school, we have been keeping a close eye on the buds. Some of the ash buds are out now. These are pictures from the Ash tree in Ms. McLoughlin's garden. How are the buds on the Ash trees near you?

April 15th. The buds have got much bigger now.

Mini Beast Adventure

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
The weather was so pleasant today. We decided to see what mini-beasts like to do in sunny weather. As usual we went to the log pile behind the Senior School for our adventure. We found wood lice, slugs, worms, flies, ants, centipedes and millipedes. We picked some up and put them in our bug viewers so we could examine how many legs they had. Others we just watched, as they went about their buggy business. We know that insects have only 6 legs, so we were trying to find as many different insects as we could. We realised that: with 14 legs, wood lice are not insects. Neither are spiders with 8 legs (arachnids actually) or slugs, snails, or worms, all with no legs at all. Naturally, centipedes and millipedes have far too many legs. Thank goodness for flies and ants. We looked closely at the mural on the wall and saw how many mini-beasts we could name. Some of us used to be a bit scared around small bugs, but now we can see what interesting creatures they are. We will help look after them if they ever need our help!

The Sinking Submarine

We have a little plastic submarine in our classroom. We tried filling it with baking powder and then submerging it in a basin of water. We hoped the baking powder would react with the water and make bubbles of carbon dioxide that would float the submarine. This didn't happen. We could see the bubbles of air popping slowly out the top of the submarine but the submarine stayed stubbornly on the bottom of the basin. We tried again, this time with less baking powder, but that didn't work either. We'll go on trying until we discover the right combination!