More cocoons

Award of Science and Maths Excellence 2010

A Hearty congratulations to all the teachers and pupils of Scoil Chaitríona Junior who were awarded our Award of Science and Maths Excellence. A big THANK YOU to Dr. Malachy Thompson who presented us with our award, and who gave 2 amazing "Flashes and Bangs" demonstrations today. Here are more pictures of Dr. Malachy's visit with us today: Click on each picture to see it in larger form.

On the Beach

Cabbage White caterpillars and planting radishes

Magnetic Madness

Forces: Air makes a car and a boat move

Eating our soup

Making soup

Releasing our butterflies

Medtronic Night

We have 5 butterflies

More butterflies

Yesterday we watched Flingo for hours, to see would he change from chrysalis to butterfly. He was still in his cocoon before breakfast today, but changed as teacher was eating breakfast. How disappointing to miss that! Teacher got the camera ready, and hoped to film our final chrysalis changing today. It didn't happen, much to our disappointment. Maybe tomomorrow Crawly will want to join Leafy, Max, Blinky and Flingo as a painted lady butterfly. Have a look at today's menu for the butterflies. Can you spot the proboscis (straw like tongue) on the butterfly, for sucking up all that delicious orange juice.

More Butterfly News

We have a butterfly

Friday, June 4th, 2010
This morning teacher went in to school to check on the cocoons. She left a little banana, a little orange, a little strawberry (from our garden), and a little water in case any cocoon was nearly ready to open and let out a butterfly. In the afternoon she checked again, and was amazed to see Leafy out of his cocoon and looking very healthy. With a little help from her own children, she put some flowers in the butterfly garden as well - buttercups, daisies and dandelions. It is a pity that we are on holidays until Wednesday, because we are missing this excitement. Keep an eye on the website - teacher will check the butterflies every day and let you know what's happening.

Our garden is growing

Friday, June 4th, 2010
Our garden is looking so great. Everything is growing well in this glorious sunshine. The peas look especially tasty.

Froggy and Wiggy go home

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Kay Synott is the garden expert who helped us set up our school garden. She brought us the tadpoles so we could see how tadpoles grow into frogs. Now that Froggy is a frog, and Wiggy will soon be a frog too, we decided they would be happier back in their own pond. Kay very very kindly offered

to come and take them home. She even sent us photos of their release so we could see how happy they are back home again, surrounded by lots of froggy friends and family. A huge Thank You to Kay for the learning experience of a lifetime!

Froggy, our new frog

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
Froggy has turned into a frog!!! When we went home yesterday, Delta had died, Wiggy was a tadpole with no legs, and Froggy was a tadpole with both back and front legs. When we arrived in school this morning Froggy was sitting happily on the stone in the tank. He still has a little tail, but is a perfect frog in every other way. He showed off to all the junior and senior classes in the school. Tomorrow he will meet all the 1st and 2nd classes, before being collected by Kay (our gardener) and taken back to the pond from where he originally came.

Filmstars of Room 5

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
We have had a great time planting our school garden, learning about the food pyramid and foods that are good for our health, and learning all about garden creatures. Today we had a visit from Brendan Smith and Ciarán, a cameraman. They came to make a short film with us, about our gardening and learning experiences. We will get to see this film next Wednesday at the "Medtronic Healthy Living" evening in the Radisson Hotel (at 7pm if you would like to join us!) On that night we will have a stand, and will be demonstrating all we have learned. It will be a great night!