Mayflies

On Wednesday Ms Ferguson brought in some mayflies. Her Dad uses mayflies to catch trout on Lough Corrib. We all had a chance to let a mayfly sit on our hands. The are green when they are fresh and turn grey/black after a few days. Trout only like to eat green ones. We can catch them on the rocks of the lake shore and in the trees on the shore.

A box of mayflies

A big Thank You to Ms. Ferguson who brought some mayflies to our class.

She explained how they are used by fishermen to catch fish.

We really enjoyed having them walk on our hands.

Boats for passengers

We have been talking about floating and sinking.

We notice that a ball of marla will sink when dropped into water.

With a little practice we were able to make boats out of the marla.

We could get these boats to float.

Next we added passengers (dried peas).

One of the boats could even hold 42 dried peas!

That's the boat teacher would like to travel on!

Rockets experiment

We did a brilliant experiment with a drink bottle and a pump.
When you pump air in with a  bottle one third filled with water ,it explodes and zooms off like a rocket!
The children had great fun retrieving the bottle!

Summer nature walk

We took advantage of the lovely weather to go on a summer nature walk .The trees are in full bloom and the birds are chirping away :)

Electricity in Junior Infants

We've been learning about electricity! This week we worked together and used a battery, wires and a bulb to make light!

Minibeast hunt

With the arrival of some nice weather (finally!) we went out and about on a quest to find some minibeasts!!! We saw some ants, a beetle and this garden snail!

Our outdoor classroom

The weather was lovely today.

We went outside to learn some interesting things about the world around us.

First of all we went on a bug hunt (after learning to use the identification keys).

We found mainly centipedes and woodlice, but we also found a spider, some beetles and a millipede.

After putting our bugs carefully back where they came from we went to see a blue tit nest.

The nest was in a bird box in the tree.

We could see the mammy and daddy bird fly in and out of the nest.

We were delighted to be invited to see a webcam of the inside of the nest by Ms. Barrett in the senior school.  We could see the 8 little birds with their beaks open looking for food from their parents.

We think the little blue tit birds made their nest from the cut grass, so we tried making little grass nests ourselves.  We were quite good at this.

We love learning all about nature around us.

Our caterpillars have arrived

Our baby Painted Lady caterpillars arrived by post today.

The caterpillars are just tiny!

Volcano experiments

We did an experiment with baking soda,vinegar,red food dye ,washing up liquid and water on Friday.
Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate and vinegar is acid.When they mix together ,they make carbonic acid and it makes the mixture erupt!
We had fun doing it.

Water experiments

We are learning a lot about water.

We know that water has a skin on the top called "water tension".  Pond skater insects can stand on this water skin but we can't because we are too heavy.

 We filled up a plastic bottle, put a hand on top, turned it over and then took the hand away.

Do you think the water spilled out or stayed in the bottle?

We had to guess. Most of us guessed it would spill but some guessed it would stay in the bottle.  It didn't! but came rushing out when we pulled our hand away.

 Now we tried again, but this time used some card to cover the opening of the container.  We were very surprised at the result.  When we took our hand away the card didn't fall down.  We were amazed.  Teacher explained that the air trying to get into the container pushes against the card and stops the card from falling, even though the water in the container is trying to get out.

 Now for something really cool!  If you cut a small boat out of card and put it in the water it will float.  The boat will not move though.  Now if you put a drop of wash up liquid (or soap or shampoo) at the back of the boat, the boat will speed away.  Be warned.  This experiment works only once until you empty the soapy water, clean the container and start again)  The soap breaks the skin (surface tension) of the water and pushes the speed boat along.  We can't wait to try this in the bath.

Just before home time we tried the diver experiment. 

Our diver floated ok but this diver is too light so he wouldn't dive for us.  Teacher will make him heavier by adding more marla and we will try and get him to dive tomorrow.

Ants and worms

It is time to let our ants and worms go free.

These are the tunnels they have been digging.

It has been very interesting watching the ants gather food and dig tunnels.

 It was also very interesting watching the worms dig down through the different layers of sand clay and compost.  We can see how worms are good for the soil:- they mix up the soil, add their own waste to the soil and let lots of air in.

Gardening in May

We checked on our garden today.

We did some weeding and saw some nice bugs and insects.

We picked garlic, carrots and radishes.

We will try them all once they have been cleaned and sliced.

Lifecycles

Today we learned (or revised what we know) about lifecycles.

We talked about the lifecycle of the frog, the hen, the butterfly, the duck, the plant and the tree.

After talking about each one we made lifecycle jigsaws, filled in lifecycle sticky charts and played with frogs and butterflies in all of the stages of their lifecycle.

Ask us about lifecycles now.

We are really experts on this!

Tom Cuffe, the birdman

Thank you so much Tom for visiting our class today.

Tom showed us some great origami birds and then told us lots and lots of interesting facts about birds.

We learned about the biggest bird in the world and the biggest in Ireland, the smallest birds, the birds with the longest wingspan, the birds with the biggest and smallest eggs, the birds who can fly the fastest, dive the fastest, tallest birds and lots more.

We were shown how to draw birds, how birds catch and eat mice, what might be in an owl's pellet and what different birds sound like.

We had a fantastic morning with Tom and we learned so much today.

We are all so interested in birds after Tom's talk today.

Thank you so much Tom!

Floating and sinking

We had fun testing to see what objects float and which sink.

We enjoyed guessing first and then testing.

Bird's nest, jumping frog and ants and worms

Teacher found a nest in her garden.  It had been blown from its tree by the wind.

She also found a little white egg nearby. 

Tom Cuffe, the bird man will be visiting us on Wednesday.  He will help us to identify the nest and the egg.

Emily found a frog in her garden.
Her dad Adrian carefully put the frog into the pets bowl and took him in some pond water to visit us in school.  He was gorgeous.
We took the lid off to have a look and he jumped all round the class.
We were very surprised but we really enjoyed his visit to our class!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in our class:-

We are having great fun reading comics hand written and hand drawn by our own students,

We are looking after our worms and ants,

and we had girls from 1st class visit us to show us their caterpillar.

 Thanks to all who make learning such a fun and hands-on experience for us all!