Floating ball: Senior Infants

Tissue goal: Senior Infants

Here are some photos of us trying to blow a piece of tissue into a bottle goal.  We thought that if you blow very hard (like kicking a football) that it would be easy to score a goal, but in fact, the trick to scoring is to blow very gently right at the ball.  Otherwise the air that you blow goes round the ball, hits the back wall of the bottle, and bounces out again, taking the tissue ball with it.  This looks like a trick, but actually it is based on Science - air hitting a hard object will bounce off it, and change direction, just like sound waves, or light rays bouncing off shiny surfaces.

Making sprays in Senior Infants

Straw Whistles: Senior Infants

We made whistles from straws.  Teacher cut the top of each straw into a point.  When we squeeze this straw between our lips, we can make music.  Some of us could do this, but some of us need more practice.  Some of us even managed to play "Jingle Bells" on our straw whistles. 

Teacher started with a long straw which made a very low sound.  Then, as she was playing her straw she cut it smaller.  Each time she cut the straw it got shorter and the sound got higher.  We can see that long straws make low sounds while short straws make high sounds.

Dr. Malachy's space

Today, Tuesday December 14th, 2010 Dr. Malachy Thompson came to tell us all about space.  He had a really interesting presentation for us, with photos of the planets and the sun, moon and earth.  We learned lots and lots of things that we didn't already know.  Thanks so much Dr. Malachy for such an interesting talk!

A sod of turf: Senior infants

Mrs. Newell brought some turf from the bog in to school to show us.  We talked about using turf in the fires in our chimneys to keep us warm, and we talked about where turf comes from.  This turf came from a bog, and is made up of rottted trees, leaves, grasses and mud.  When it is dried it burns well and a turf fire smells really nice.  We each had a look at the turf, and we tried holding it and smelling it.

Soup from our garden: Senior Infants

Yesterday, December 10th, 2010 our teacher Ms. McLoughlin and Ms. Conneely got our school garden ready for winter (a little late, but better late than never!).  They harvested all the carrots, onions, scallions and potatoes that were still growing, weeded the beds, and covered the beds with black plastic bags, so that the weeds in them will die and no more weeds will come.  Our strawberry plants got covered too, we wonder will they survive?  Now we just wait till Spring before we need to tend to our garden again.  Then the planting and weeding will begin again.  In the meantime, have a look at the harvest:

Melting ice and using insulators: Senior Infants

At the beginning of the class, the teacher showed us a picture of a showman, and she asked us to think about whether putting a coat on the snowman would make the snowman melt more slowly or more quickly.  We were all very sure that the snowman will melt more quickly with his coat on.  Coats are lovely and warm, and usually heat melts the snow.  We all thought the same thing.  We took a vote but all decided that this was the right answer.  Then teacher did this ice experiment with us:

Now we can see that coats are good insulators and will keep us nice and warm when it is cold outside, but if you put a coat on a snowman, the coat will stop the warmer air getting at the snowman, so having a coat will actually keep the snowman colder for longer, and so he will be slower to melt!  We must try this the next time we have snow!!!

Bird Feeder: Junior Infants

I made a bird feeder using a drinks bottle, bamboo rod and plastic lid. I put bird seed into it. We will put it out daily and we hope to attract  the smaller birds.

Visit from a dentist: Junior infants

Last week we learned all about teeth as part of national tooth day.  Today we were very lucky to get a visit from a dentist.  Jahangir's daddy is a dentist and he took time out of his very busy day to come and talk to all the boys and girls in our class.  He told us how to care for our teeth.  He told us we need to brush our teeth twice a day and most importantly at night.  We should brush our teeth for three minutes.  We are going to ask our mammys and daddys to time us next time we brush.  Dr Rashid brought a model of our teeth along to show us how to brush correctly. We learned it is very important to brush the back teeth as sometimes we miss them. We learned we do not need to cover our tooth brush in tooth paste, a pee size amount is just fine. First we should rince our mouth out, then brush horizontally  but with our tooth brush facing slightly upwards towards our nose.  Another important tip Dr Rashid gave us was it is important to brush your gums aswel as your teeth. 

 

Freezing temperatures: Junior Infants

We put out a glass of green water on Wednesday at home time. It was frozen solid the following morning. We put out our thermometer each morning this week and we has minus temperatures. We kept a record of the inside and outside temperatures.

Salt on ice: Senior infants

Birds in cold weather: Junior Infants

Today was another cold day. We all are wearing our Winter Woolies. We put out a bird feeder today for the birds. They find it very difficult to get food during the cold winter months. We hope the birds will find the feeder and have something to eat. We will watch the feeder when we are going home to see if the food is disappearing.

Looking after our teeth: Senior infants

It is tooth day today.  Have a look at this presentation for Junior and Senior infants http://www.dentalhealth.ie/download/pdf/toothday_2010_teachers_presentation_final_221110.pdf 

or other publications on http://www.dentalhealth.ie/publications/list/toothday/

Here's another great link.  This one is to the video story: Dr. Rabbit and the Legend of Tooth Kingdom http://www.colgate.com/app/BrightSmilesBrightFutures/US/EN/Kids/LegendVideoChapters/Chapter_01.cvspoChapters/Chapter_01.cvsp

Fun in the snow: Senior infants

We decided to make the most of the snow today and we went for a walk around our school. We had to take extra care in the snow. Our school yard was completely covered in snow so it was great fun to go out and make footprints in the snow.  We also visited the church and said a little prayer. On the way back to school again we had some more fun in the snow and even got to throw some snow balls!!

Acid cabbage test and teeth: Senior infants

We have been learning how important it is to take care of our teeth. Teacher had an enormous toothbrush and set of teeth and she showed us how to brush our teeth correctly. We learned that acid is not good for our teeth so we decided to test some drinks and other things to see if they had acid in them. To do this we needed some PH neutral water. Teacher put some chopped up red cabbage in a bowl and added some boiling water. When it cooled we were left with purple water. Then we tested some drinks and other things to see if they had acid in them. If the drinks turned pink after mixing them with the cabbage solution we knew that they contained acid. It's ok to drink these drinks accasionally but not too often as acid is very bad for our teeth and we must make sure to brush our teeth after drinking them. We found that orange juice, apple juice, lemon juice, coke and vinegar all contain acid and turned the solution pink. Bread soda and washing-up liquid are alkalis and turned the solution blue/green.

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