Teacher had a balloon (actually, she had a rocket one and an ordinary balloon - they both work in the same way). She wanted us to fly the balloon straight to her. Some of us tried, but it was impossible. We looked round the classroom to see if there is anything going all the way across the classroom that could help us get the balloon to her. We decided that we should use string and a straw - they are both long and straight. Teacher put the string (she used thread) through the straw, and two of us held either end for her.
Teacher blew up the balloon and taped the balloon to the straw. We counted down 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 Blast off! and let go the balloon. 
It zoomed across the classroom. We were wondering if the balloon could fly uphill, so one of us sat on a chair, holding the thread, while the other stood (carefully) on the table. Sure enough the balloon was happy to fly uphill. We noticed that the air coming out the end of the balloon causes the balloon to fly in the opposite direction. We really loved this investigation!
Senior Infants, Room 5 held an open day, to display the science we have done so far this year to teachers from our school and from another junior school in Ennis. 
It was an exciting day, and each pupil got the chance to man a table with an investigation of their own. Of course, we will do many more investigations before the year is over, so look out for our next open day in January or February. 
The investigations we demonstrated were: fingerprints, minibeasts, weather stick, model lungs, strawberries, helicopters, colour wheels, colour fans and acetates, smartie science, lions in cages, eggs-how to tell raw from cooked, in vinegar, how to get an egg into a bottle, dancing raisins, racing colours and string telephones.
Thanks so much to the Galway Education Centre for always showing so much interest in the science we do in class. Thanks to them too for the T-Shirts and goodies they sent as a reminder for us of our great day.
Teacher had to do these investigations herself because the water in the bottles was boiling hot - too dangerous for us to touch. First she tried to push a boiled egg, with the shell on it, into the bottle. It didn't fit. Next she peeled the egg and tried again. With water in the bottle, the egg just sat happily on top. The action started when teacher poured the boiling water out of the bottle, and then put the egg on top. Once the bottle started cooling down, the egg began to be sucked into the bottle. 
It got sucked in a little, but we think the eggs we tried were just too big - the rim of the bottle cut the egg so the egg broke (but half of it ended up in the bottle).
Today we planted daffodil bulbs. They look very like onions. We planted one each - we had to dig a hole with a trowel, pop in the bulb with the roots facing downwards, then fill in the hole with the soil we had taken out. We saw lots and lots of worms. We know the bulbs will be safe and warm in the ground all winter. We look forward to seeing the beautiful daffodils in the spring!
We are still fascinated with eggs. We were wondering - if eggs are so delicate, why does the mother hen not crush them when she sits on them? We thought we should try and find out how strong they are. Each of us had a turn squeezing them with our hands. 
Someone was wondering if the egg would crack if we sat on it. We all wondered this, but didn't try it, in case someone had to spend the rest of the day with a crushed egg all over their bottom!
We first had to guess whether raisins float in water, float in lemonade, sink in water, sink in lemonade or float and sink in water or lemonade. To keep the test fair we used the same amount of water and lemonade.
After watching them for a while we decided we would try and see what it felt like being a raisin in lemonade. We curled up and sank, had bubbles stick on to us, floated for a while till teacher said "pop", and then we sank down again. We think the raisins must have had great fun doing this experiment! 
When you spin a raw egg, then put your hand gently on it to stop it, then take your hand off the egg starts to spin again. This is like a child in a car crash with no seat belt - when the car stops suddenly, the child keeps going, maybe out the car window. With the cooked egg, when it is stopped, it stays stopped even when the hand is taken away. This is like a child with a seat belt on in the car. When the car stops suddenly, so does the child. The reason this happens is that the inside of a cooked egg is solid, while the inside of a raw egg is quite liquidy.
Thursday, October 15th, 2009We had a look at our eggs this morning. The egg on the left is the one that was in water. When we took it out of the water it looked exactly the same as it did yesterday. The egg that was in the vinegar didn't. All the shell had come off. The shell is still hard but the brown colour came off in the tissue. There was even a brown skim floating on the top of the vinegar. Teacher poked at the egg, and said it wasn't ready yet so it has gone back into the vinegar until Monday. What on earth is going to happen to it? 
As a green school we are very interested in recycling in our class and in our schools. We talk lots about recycling. We use recycling bins in our class and at home. We even use recycled water (rainwater) on our plants in class. We have coloured recycling posters for a competition. Today we took a walk to our local recycling bank - a 2minute walk from our class. 
We looked at each of the bins and tried to use our reading skills to figure what goes in each bin. We found out that we can't recycle cans or tins here but on one of the bins we could read what to do with our tins and cans (put them in our green wheelie bins at home once they are clean and dry). We can't wait to collect lots of bottles from home and take our families to the recycling bank.
When we were spinning our colour wheels last week we noticed that if you spin things fast enough your eyes might not be able to keep up and you migh see something that is not actually there! 
This happens because our eyes can't send messages to our brains quickly enough for our brains to realise that we are looking at two different pictures, and not just a single one.
