Thursday, May 14, 2015

Coats

On Tuesday it was very wet and windy, on Wednesday it was warm and sunny and today it was showery.  We took a look at the different kinds of jackets we need to wear in an Irish summer.
First of all we had a look at our jackets and we tried to figure out what they were made from.
We know that leather comes from animal skin,
silk comes from silkworms,
cotton is a plant that grows,
wool comes from sheep
and many materials (fabrics) are man made.
We chatted about the coats that animals have (fur, hair or feathers).  We know that some coats are waterproof and others keep out the wind or sun but not the rain.
Animals have coats that help them to blend in to their surroundings (camouflage).  We are glad that we don't blend into our surroundings because that wouldn't be as safe as wearing high viz or bright clothes, especially when we are on the path or crossing roads.
Now we started to wonder????????
Do all black coats have pockets?  In our class the answer was YES
Do people always wear summer jackets in summer?  In our class the answer was NO, some children brought a winter jacket to school today (even though it is now summer) and some children said they don't even have a summer jacket.
Do all pink coats have reflectors on them?  In our class the answer was NO
Do all purple coats have pockets?  YES our one purple coat did.
Do all jackets with fluff on the hood have a hood that is stuck to the coat?  NO, one of our jackets didn't.
Do all grey coats have reflectors?  NO, in fact neither did.
Do all jackets have the same colour on the inside and outside of the coat?  NO, some did, some didn't/
A new word for us today was the colour  NAVY.  We have been calling this colour grey or blue or black.  It is nice to have a proper word for this colour.
We enjoyed using Venn hoops for sorting our jackets and figuring out the answers to our questions.
Later this week we are going to design nice coats for our drawings.
The highlight of this very interesting lesson was getting to use the microscope to look at our jackets under the microscope.
We found that the soft fluffy jackets looked like cotton wool under the microscope.
The puffy looking jackets looked like bubble wrap and the waterproof jackets looked like the coverings we sometimes see on metal factory floors.

Here is a great story (Aesop's fable) about the Sun and the North Wind

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