Nature in Autumn

We are talking a lot about Autumn. Here are some of the autumn leaves, fruits, nuts and berries that we have on our Nature Table. We made some leaf rubbing pictures, and some tree collages.

Helicopters

Forces - Air, Helicopters
Monday, 29th September 2008
We found an ash tree with lots of seeds on it.
Teacher found a sycamore tree with lots of helicopters on it.
These seeds fly in the wind.
Teacher can use a balloon to make a helicopter fly.

We made our own helicopters. They fly when we drop them. The smaller ones fly better than the big ones, and helicopters with paper clips fly the best.

Visit from an Occupational Therapist

Friday, 26th September, 2008
One of the boys in our class has a mum who has a very interesting job. She is an occupational therapist or OT for short. She came to our class today to show us what she does in her work.
Anita works with elderly people, or with young people who need help doing the basic things in life like feeding themselves, dressing themselves or looking after themselves.

She brought in lots of things that she uses in her work, like a kettle/teapot pourer, elastic laces, a plate guard, an adapted spoon, a grabber for picking up objects and a splint for people with arthritis in their hands. She also brought in a skeleton of the spine and pelvis. We thought at first they might be dinosaur bones but they turned out to be a model of real human bones. OTs use lots of science in their jobs. They need to know all the bones, muscles and nerves in the body. They know lots and lots about the human body. They have to study for 3 or 4 years to learn how to be an OT. It is very important to lift things correctly. Anita showed us how to lift things by bending our knees and keeping the box close to us as we lift it. If we do this well we might not get any backache as we grow older. Lots of us had a go to try and see could we lift correctly. Some children and adults have to use wheelchairs if they find it really hard to walk. Our OT showed us the parts of a wheelchair and some of us got turns at trying it out. It was tiring.

Garda Visit

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

One of the boys in our class has a dad with an interesting job. He is a garda. He came to visit us today to tell us all about being a guard. He showed us all the things that he carries with him when he is at work, and he told us how to stay safe.


Ronan the garda was very nice. He talked to us all about keeping safe - crossing the road, wearing seat belts in the car, talking to strangers, what to do if we get lost. He even gave each us a red light reflector for the back of our bikes, to keep us safe when we are cycling. Now we know how to stay safe.

Army Visitors

Visit from Army personnel, 23rd September, 2008
One of the Mums in our class came to talk to us about being in the army. Amy and Danny showed us some army things and explained how they all work. They use a lot of science in their job. Here are some of the science topics they covered in their talk:
· Protecting our eyes and ears and faces, how a gas mask works.
· Cooking outdoors. Getting enough liquids. Carrying water bottles.
· Surviving outdoors, staying warm and dry. Making a camp. Packing and carrying rucksacks.
· Camouflage and camouflage paint. Mosquito nets.
· First aid kits. Peacekeeping.

Trip to the Beach

Wednesday, 17th September 2008
Today was a gorgeous day so Ms. Flaherty's class and Ms. McLoughlin's class of Senior Infants went to the beach.
We had a lovely walk to the beach. On the way we practised crossing roads safely. We learned this rhyme:
Stop, look, and listen
Before you cross the street.
Use your eyes, use your ears,
and then use your feet!
On the beach we found lots of treasures: shells, seaweed, rocks and rock pools, dog's footprints and lots and lots of sand.
On our way home we stopped under our horse chestnut tree and we saw what the tree looks like in Autumn.

Balloon Lung and How Big are my Lungs?

Senior Infants, Room 5
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Today we were talking about breathing and about our lungs.
Balloon Lung: It was easier to understand about what goes on when we breathe when we did a breathing investigation.
Teacher cut up a 2litre bottle and put a balloon on the end. (The balloon is like our lungs and the bottle is like the rib cage). We can get a balloon lung to inflate (blow up) and deflate (go down), inside its lungs (a coke bottle) by squeezing the bottle.
Next we found out how big our lungs are:
When I blow out through the tube, the air from my lungs goes into the big bottle. The air in the bottle goes into the basin. The air in the bottle when I am finished is the air that came out of my lungs. Lots of air means big lungs!

Shadows and Rainbows

Shadows
Monday, 8th September 2008
Today was a nice day. The sun was shining so outside we made shadows.
You need to have the sun behind you to make nice shadows. We made big shadows, small shadows, wide and narrow shadows and funny shadows.
Next we made rainbows from sunlight. When we use a prism in the sunshine we can make sunlight turn into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet light.

Finger Printing

Friday, September 5th, 2008
Today we found out that all our finger prints are different. We used a pencil to make a smudgy mark, then we pushed a finger into that smudge. We stuck that smudgy finger onto sticky tape, and stuck the tape into our workbooks. We could look carefully at the fingerprints using magnifying glasses.

Bug Hunting

Thursday, September 4th 2008.
Today the weather was warm and sunny so we went out hunting for bugs. We went beside the lovely mural in the senior school. We found wasps, spiders, wood lice, worms, snails, slugs, centipedes and millipedes. After looking at them under a magnifying glass in the bug viewers, we returned them to their homes under logs and beside the wall.

Telling the age of a tree

Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Some of the trees in our school were cut down over the summer. We can tell how old these trees were by counting the rings on the stump. We discovered that some of the trees were very old.

Potato Maze

Tuesday, September 2nd 2008. We are having fun in our new class. On Tuesday teacher brought in 2 potatoes that were starting to grow. We have put them into a shoe box maze and hope that they will grow towards the light at the top of the box. We will check on them every month.