St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

Welcome to Engineers Week in St Peter’s! This morning in 5th class, we started thinking about what we know about engineers. We started by thinking individually about words that come to mind when we hear the word ‘engineer’. We also drew pictures of what we think an engineer looks like. Next, we worked in pairs to discuss what we know about engineers. Then we shared our work with the rest of the class. We made a Wordle to show what we think an engineer does, at the start of Engineers Week. We’re going to make another one on Friday to assess what we’ve learned in the... 

Today, we investigated circuits and Electric Paint. Part of the work of an engineer is to design and to build everyday items so that they work better! Electric Paint can be used instead of wires to conduct electricity. This is our finished work! We used a Vine to show off a selection of them! We’ve been working on a kit from Bare Conductive, which you can find out more about here. We’re big fans of Electric Paint and we used it previously in our school-winning project for the Mini-Scientist. We had to let the paint dry.  

Did you know that there’s not just one type of engineering? Just like a doctor can specialise as a GP or a surgeon, the career of an engineer can be very specialised too! Today, we learned about the different disciplines of engineering here on the Steps website. We each chose a different area of engineering that we would be interested in. Well done to Alan for leading today’s podcast! What area of engineering would you be interested in?  

This week has been Science Week around the country! In St Peter’s, we’re famous for our involvement in scientific activities and events, and this week was no exception. 4th, 5th and 6th were busy with their projects for the Mini-Scientist, and other classes got stuck in with a variety of enjoyable activities! Here are the headlines for this week: The MakeyMakey board video was a massive success this week – see what all the fuss is about here! 2nd class had a great week for Science Week – read all about it here Well done to Patryk in 6th who collected his prize for his... 

We had brilliant fun on Wednesday. To celebrate Science Week 2013, we made a human piano with 2nd, 5th and 6th class! We made it using a makey makey board and a scratch game. Check out our video! We’re so pleased with it. Archie, Patryk and Edward did a brilliant job presenting. The start of the video is an explanation and 2.38 is where the real music kicks in. A 35 person human piano… it’s possible! from St Peter’s, Bray on Vimeo.  

We made lava lamps. It was so cool! We wanted to do them because we saw that 3rd Class did them last year. You can see their work here. Why don’t you see our video? Later we will put up two more videos, our makey makey board and our volcanoes! Lava Lamps for Science Week 2013! from St Peter’s, Bray on Vimeo.  

Last Thursday, as part of Maths Week, we took part in a Maths Table Quiz. Paddy and Mr Kinsella, after much deliberation, split 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th classes into mixed teams of 4 for the quiz in the library. The quiz was provided by Seomra Ranga, always a great source of resources for primary schools. You can check out Seomra Ranga here! Thanks to Ms Byrne, Ms Sugrue, Ms Kane and Mr Staunton for correcting the quiz papers and for keeping the scoreboard up to date. Ms Sexton read out the questions and the jokes. Thanks to Paddy for taking the photos! Well done to Team 14 who were the winners –... 

This week for Maths Week, we decided to search for Maths in our environment. We based it on the ‘Have You Got Maths Eyes’ project – you can read more about it here. Most photos were taken outside of school on phones, tablets and cameras, while a few were taken in the yard. Andy even found a picture in the newspaper and cut it out. Take a look at our photos. Can you answer all of the questions? What kind of shape does the roof seem from this angle? What shape would it be if you were looking at it straight on? – Ben  

  Engineers’ Week took place between the 25th of February and the 3rd of March. We all took part in Science experiments and K’nex challenges to get us thinking about what life would be like to be an engineer! Third Class wanted to find out more about aeronautical engineering as many of us love to make and experiment with paper aeroplanes. Here is how we carried out our investigation.  

Congratulations to the following boys who were on the team that won our Engineering Week quiz – Dylan Hampenstall (Mr. Kinsella’s class), Jack Barsoum (Ms. Whyte’s class), Alan Duda (Ms. Byrne’s class), Adam Farrell and Sam Barsoum (Mr. Foley’s class)  and Cian Cleary (Ms. Brennan’s class).  Everyone really enjoyed themselves and had a great time answering questions about science, technology and engineering.