Rocket launching, Senior Infants

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
We went to the field today to launch rockets. We needed a bottle, water, a bicycle pump, a valve and wings for the rocket. We took turns at pumping the rocket, and running after it. We could figure out which way the wind was blowing, by where the rocket flew. When we pumped lots of air in the bottle, the pressure made the valve pop out, and the rocket flew (the water came out as it flew). We tried launching the rocket with no water in it. It launched, and flew higher but not as far. Launching rockets is great fun.

Apple tree and apples, Junior Infants

Teacher brought in apples from her own garden. We had an apple tasting session. They all agreed they were very juicy. We planted the pips and hope to get a tree if we keep them watered.

Eggs from caterpillars

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Our caterpillars seem to have laid eggs!!! We have cabbage white caterpillars in school. We feed them cabbage leaves, and sprinkle the leaves with a little water each day. The caterpillars seem very happy in their new home. Some of the caterpillars seem to have laid eggs (we didn't know they could do that! we thought it was the butterfly that lays the eggs). Anyway, we are waiting patiently for some cocoons, then butterflies. We hope it's not too cold for them these days.
After some searching on the internet, teacher discovered that caterpillars can't lay eggs!
The answer seems to be that the eggs are injected into them by a parasitic wasp which hatch then eat the caterpillar from the inside out before crawling out (they really look like eggs!) We will have to keep a good watch on these eggs and see what happens!
Check out this article for more information http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/alien-empire/caterpillar-wasps/3415/

All about my lungs

Examining leaves

We have noticed that the trees are changing colour and they are loosing their leaves. The colours we have noticed around the school are yellow, brown, red and orange. We went on a leaf hunt around our school. We collected some of these leaves to take a closer look. We wanted to examine how all the leaves felt, smelled and what they looked like under a magnifying glass. We especially like the horsechestnut leaf and the oak leaf. We are on the look out for some conkers for our nature table.

Did you know? ......
On finding your first conker of the season, you should say:
" Oddly oddly onker my first conker". This ensures good fortune and few tangles throughout the coming season.
The game of conkers is known as 'Kingers' in some parts of the world.

A big thank you to Sarah for bringing in lots of different types of leaves for us to examine. We decorated the autumn tree in our class today with the leaves. We think it looks great and we love to look at the autumn colours.

Medtronic Scientist

Cabbage White caterpillars

Shadows and Rainbows

What happened to Froggy, our frog?

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

We got an email from Kay (our garden expert) this morning. She released Froggy (our tadpole who turned into a frog in our classroom last June) back home into the pond he came from. Today she sent us a photo of Froggy, relaxing in his pond. He has grown to be a fine frog. We are soooooo proud of him. Thank you Kay, for keeping us updated on his progress. Check out how much he has grown by looking at last year's articles on: http://scoilchaitrionajnrscience.blogspot.com/2010/06/froggy-and-wiggy-go-home.html

and http://scoilchaitrionajnrscience.blogspot.com/2010/06/froggy-our-new-frog.html and
http://scoilchaitrionajnrscience.blogspot.com/2010/05/tadpoles-with-legs.html and
http://scoilchaitrionajnrscience.blogspot.com/2010/05/living-lifecycles-bugs-in-classroom.html

Fruit veg and flowers from our garden

Helicopters

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Teacher had a balloon helicopter. We watched it flying in class. The air from the balloon makes the helicopter fly. When all the air is gone from the balloon, the helicopter drops back to the ground again.

Our Weather Stick

In our classroom we have a weather stick. It has a thermometer and a rain gauge on it. Every day one child has the job of putting the weather stick outside the door for the day, then taking it in and recording temperature and rainfall before he or she goes home at 1:30.

Would anyone like to be a weatherman or weatherwoman when he/she grows up?

Finger prints

A ripe apple? Food tasting

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Today, when we were using our magnifying glasses to look at our fingerprints, we also had a look at each other's tongues. We could see the taste buds on our tongues. These are to help us taste foods that are sweet, sour, salty or bitter.
We had a small food tasting session today. We each tasted a slice of apple (a little sour), a slice of onion (spicy) and a slice of carrot (sweet) which we grew in our own school garden. We were a little surprised that the apple was sour rather than sweet. Teacher showed us the apple pips - they were white. Usually pips are brown, but teacher explained that the apple which we picked was not quite ripe yet. That's why it tasted sour rather than sweet.

Harvesting from our school garden

Friday, 3rd September, 2010