Friday, December 19, 2008

Children learning about the children in Uganda

Ugandan LINK Project








The children listened to many stories and songs by Ms Tierney and saw pictures from Uganda - they played with the dolls made from banana fibres and sang the songs that the children in Uganda sing each morning in school. It was so much fun!
Then we decided to create some nice parkly Christmas cards for the children sent via a courier so that they would get some post (they dont have post there usually).

Thanks Ms Tierney, we had a great day and learnt so much!

December & Christmas 08

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!



We've had such fun these last couple of weeks-



we made snowmen using a variety of materials, shiny gold angels, christmas tealights and decorations from clay which we painted, rainy day umbrellas, as well as colouring lots of lovely Christmas pictures!



The children attended a junior infant, 1st and 2nd class play and sang so sweetly at the carol service on Wednesday night. Well done boys and girls!



Then on Friday Santa even stopped by to say hello!!!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Art - Snails using clay and paint







The children created some beautiful snail creatures out of clay & have painted them. They also created some silvery trails to display them on. They look just like the real thing now!!

Science week

This week is the Science and technology week and we have been learning lots of fun & exciting things through science investigations at school.
We have watched our cress seeds growing, they've gotten really tall lately! To see if the plants need sunlight as well as water we've placed one well watered plant in a dark cupboard. We will check it in a few days to see if it has changed.

We have also continued to measure & record the rainfall this week using the rain gauge, as well as using symbols on our class calendar.

The celery sticks that were placed in the red, orange and clear water have all turned the colour of the water! This proves that plants take up water through the stalk to the leaves & we have looked at the little capillaries that carry it.

Bubble show


We attended a bubble show in the Education centre too..we learnt all about the colours of the rainbow and how they are present in a bubble. The children got really got at predicting when the bubble was goign to pop based on the colours they could see.
We learnt that a bubble always takes the 3D shape of a sphere. It was really amazing to see such big bubbles filled with smoke!
The walk to and from the centre was also great as it helped us to see & talk about all the buildings & nature that is near our school in Renmore. Hopefully we can do this again sometime!!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Rain gauge

We are measuring the amount of rainfall for the month of November using a rain gauge which we have placed outside our classroom.

So far we have collected 25mm! We have predicted that we will collect a lot more in the coming weeks!!

Growing plants


The children are trying to grow their own plants in the classroom. Each group has a cress seed jar where they must ensure that the seeds are kept moist and cared for.




We cant wait to see the cress seeds grow!



Water week

The children know that all living things need water and since it rains a lot in Ireland we could be said to be quite lucky! :)

The children are investigating the way in which plants take up water into their leaves.

We are using celery and some red and yellow dyed water to do so. We cant wait to see the celery in a few days. Some think that it might turn red!!

Winter is here!!

We have a "Winter table" set up in our classroom which helps us to remember all the things that happen in this season. The children are wearing warmer clothes. They are going to try to feed the animals that did not go into hibernation, especially the birds.

Sense of Taste



The children explored their sense of taste. We looked at our tongues and tried to find our taste buds! Then we tasted some bitter, salty, sweet and sour foods. It was great fun!!


Saturday, October 25, 2008

"Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater"

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,

Had a wife and couldn't keep her,

He put her in a pumpkin shell,

And there he kept her very well!!

Science Experiment


The scientists in Ms Dillons Junior infants class performed an experiment this week - they investigated why raisins dance in fizzy water as opposed to still water, and recorded the results using diagrams.

We really enjoyed this experiment!

Witches walk

This week all of the children in the junior school in Renmore turned into scary halloween characters!! We went on a walk around the local area and tried to scare some of the people who live near by ... we made some very spooky noises!

Take a look at Ms. Dillons junior infants who were particularly really scary!!!!








Friday, October 10, 2008

Hibernating animals

The children know that some animals hibernate during this season so we decided to make some hedgehogs to decorate our classroom - first we painted Harry and then we stuck on his spines! Our classroom is full of Harry hedgehogs now!!

Autumn Outing









This week we made use of the fine day and went for another Nature walk! We collected some beautiful coloured autumn leaves and we each made a leaf print in our an Autumn books.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Beautiful September weather


We went on a nature walk with our friends in Ms. Tierneys class when the weather was good in September. We saw lots of different types of trees and collected some Autumn leaves and some horse-chestnuts for our nature table. This inspired our leaf artwork which we did the following week. Here we are under one of the biggest trees in the park!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Our first week


The boys and girls in their first week made a new friend called Mr. Incy Wincy spider, so they though it might be nice to create some new friends for him! Each child used their choice of colours and can admire their work everyday when they hang up their coats.

Our Autumn leaves


We collected leaves on our nature walk last week, so we decided to create some Autumn leaves in our Art class using a range of fabric & fibre for our classroom.
We created four leaf types - Horsechestnut, Ash, Oak, and Sycamore.