Caterpillar, cocoon and inchworm update, Senior Infants

Well, no news on this front.  Teacher continues to provide delicious cabbage leaves, grass and other assorted leaves, and raindrops for all meals.  The caterpillars are happily snoozing in their cocoons.  The parasitic wasp eggs look much the same as ever, and Inchy the inchworm misses all the kids in our class and can't wait to go back to school on Monday!

Fingerprints, Senior Infants

We are all unique and we all have different fingerprints. We decided to examine them and see what difference we found. We saw splits, cusps, whorls, tigers and zebras. It was really interesting and easy to do. We used a pencil and sticky tape!

Nature Walk, Senior Infants

We went on a Nature Walk with Ms. Flaherty's class as we have been learning a lot about Autumn in class and we wanted to see what signs of Autumn we'd see if we went on a walk. We noticed that the leaves had changed colours to lovely colours like red. orange, yellow and brown and also that alot of them had started falling off the trees. We gathered some conkers, horse chestnut leaves, ash leaves, helicopters and some blackberries for our nature table in our classroom.

Science, September & October 2010

Dancing raisins, Junior Infants

We conducted an experiment using raisins, tap water and sparkling water. We used the tap water first and they had to guess what would happen, most said they would float. Then we used the sparkling and the raisins started to dance to the top of the glass. They loved watching them dance. We kept an eye on them for quiet a while.

Road Safety: Junior Infants

This week we learned about safety on the roads.  We learned how to be safe when on our bikes and walking.  We played games practising how to cross the road safely.  We learned the ways that Lucy from Sunny Street keeps safe when she is on her bike.  She never rides her bike at night, she always wears bright reflective clothing like our new jackets and she always wears a helmet. 

Remember,
one, look for a safe place
two, don't hurry, stop and wait,
three look all around and listen
before you cross the road,
remember,
four, let all the traffic pass you
five, then walking straight across you
six, keep watching,
that's the safe cross code!!!!!

Our Nature Table: Junior Infants

Our nature table is ever expanding.  We are adding more and more all the time.
Eimear was very kind and brought in some hazelnuts for our table.  Teacher is going to open the shell so we can see the nut that is hiding inside. 

Hazelnuts can be harvested from September onwards.
The nuts are green at first and then turn light brown in autumn.  They are not just for us hungry humans though, they are also food for mice and pigeons. 

Balancing, Senior Infants

Hyacinth bulbs: Junior Infants

• We planted 2 Hyacinth bulbs in water. We also have one sitting in water so we can watch the roots grow. They will be kept in the press till the shoots show. We will check them regularly.

Planting daffodil bulbs: Senior infants

Inchworm: Senior Infants

Today teacher found her first inchworm.  It looks like a worm with 6 legs in front and 6 legs at the back (2 of those are very thick).  An inchworm is a larva of a moth, so if we bring him into class he will turn into a chrysalis, then a moth.  You should see how he moves, by bending like an elastic band.  He is such an interesting little creature.  See  for yourself, then listen to the song at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0lQ0bdcjfY&feature=related or  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXi3bjKowJU  At school we tried letting Inchy the inch worm crawl on our hands.  It was fun.  We have put him in our Butterfly Garden, in the hope that he will change first into a chrysalis, then into a moth.

Look at the great pine cone that was brought in to school for our Nature Table today

Can we balance, Senior Infants

We tried standing up from a chair without leaning forward or using our hands.We tried standing at a door and reaching over to get a  coin without bending our knees.We also attempted to lift one leg while leaning with our shoulders against the door.All of them were impossible but we had fun trying!

Litter grabbers, Senior Infants

We went out litter grabbing recently and did a big tidy up around our school.We also looked at where the clothes recycling bin is and at our grey and green bins and talked about what could be recycled.The children were excellent rubbish collectors!

Conkers: Junior Infants

We have lots of conkers for our nature table now thanks to Alyssa who collected lots and lots for us.

Thank you to all the boys and girls for bringing in all kinds of leaves for our nature table and our autumn tree.

Big Day Out, Junior Infants

      We were all very excited about our school trip. 

               We loved travelling on the bus.

The first thing we saw when we arrived in Brigits Garden

was an old old house people in Ireland lived in long long ago.  It was called a crannóg. The people had no shops to buy food in so lots of people on the island of Ireland caught fish to eat and went looking for fruits.  They had no cookers to cook the food so they had to make fires to cook the food.  Many people used to live together in these houses. 

The next thing we did was to go on a hunt for leaves, apples and accorns.  We looked for leaves of all different colours we were very good at this.  We found apples and accorns too. 

Then we had to time to play in the small playground.  We sat in the big swings. 

We listened for the song of the blackbird, robin redbreast and the chaffinch. 

 We named all the animals that hibernate in winter. 

 We made a home for our friend Mighty Mouse to hide from the owl and fox.  The owl has big eyes and can find the mouse very easily.  We put leaves, twigs and moss into the home for the mouse. This is called camouflage. We think Mighty really liked the homes we made.  We hid them in different places around the garden. 

We all made music hoping that we'd see the púca. 

 Then all of a sudden the Halloween púca came out.   

We danced around the garden.  We think the Púca was someone we know dressed up. What do you think?

 

 

Brigit's Garden gets a thumbs up from all of us,

We had fantastic day!