St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

As part of our research into the Winter Olympics and the various sports that are included in the games, we decided we wanted to find out more about bobsledding! We found out that bobsledding is a team sport, which involves riding on iced tracks in a sled. These modern tracks are made from concrete and are coated with ice. The aim of the race is to reach the finish line in the fastest time possible! Bobsledding was originally developed in the 1800s in Switzerland. We watched some old videos of the first bobsled (4 man) event in the inaugural Winter Olympic Games in 1924 and were shocked... 

We had great fun celebrating Science Week this year! Science is one of our favourite subjects and we love taking part in STEM activities! One of our favourite weeks of the year! We loved taking part in STEM for Fun in the hall this year and had the chance to try lots of different activities including creating paper planes and racing them, programming Bee Bots, building a circle using Pringles, building the tallest tower using paper and using Lego to create a ‘vehicle of the future’. In our classroom we discussed ideas that we hope Science will help us answer in the future... 

Hi everyone! Well done on all your hard work doing STEM activities so far. This week we are looking at density. Density is a word we use to describe how much space an object or substance takes up (its volume) in relation to the amount of matter in that object or substance (its mass). Another way to put it is that density is the amount of mass per unit of volume. If an object is heavy and compact, it has a high density. This video will show you how it works! Try it out at home too see if you get the same results. Feel free to experiment with different liquids, good luck!  

For this week’s STEM we will be making home-made ice-cream! It is delicious and very easy to make. You will need: A plastic bag/ zip lock, cream, vanilla extract, icing sugar, ice. Step 1: Put 1 cup of cream into a zip lock bag and add a drop of vanilla extract Step 2: Add 2 tablespoons of icing sugar to the bag. Step 3: Fill a bigger plastic bag with 2 cups of ice and salt. Step 4: Put the small bag into the big bag and shake for 10 minutes. Step 5: ENJOY, it is delicious!  

Well done to everyone who made a walking paper animal last week. They look brilliant! Mia in 2nd class 2nd class STEM winner this week. well done! Corey in 1st class 1st class, Tadhg and Elif in 5th class  

For this week’s activity we’ll be making a home-made pet! I can’t wait to see all the animals you make. What will I call my little red animal? Follow the link for the instructions; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htrW7E3o2Vw  

Atmospheric pressure is the air all around us. It weighs on us all the time, but we can’t feel it. First the atmospheric pressure (or the tiny air molecules all around us) presses against the bottom of the cardboard same way it presses against us. This pressure holds the card up. But the weight of the water should still be heavy enough to push it off right? That’s what most people would think, but if you look at the top of your upside down glass, you can see a small pocket of air. Now, the air outside the glass is at one pressure and the air inside the glass is at another. There isn’t... 

Well done to everyone who did this week’s STEM activity at home. It was brilliant to see all the different materials that worked for the experiment. Here’s some videos and pictures to show you! 1st class 2nd class Senior infants Junior infants 2nd class 5th class  

Hi everyone! This week we are starting weekly STEM activities. I will upload them to the blog every Tuesday. I will use materials that people will have at home so you can try them out yourselves. We would love to see you recreate the experiments. You can show us by sending pictures in! I want to get you thinking during these activities, so I won’t be giving you the explanation to the experiments straight away. Next week I will explain how and why this activity works, but we’d love to hear your thoughts first! Good luck and enjoy 🙂  

STEM Flying ‘Ghosts’ We learned all about electricity this week – especially static electricity. We created our own static electricity by rubbing balloons on our hair and jumpers making them stick to the walls and windows. We made some of our ‘ghosts’ fly using the static from our balloons! Pumpkin Painting We had great fun painting pumpkins as a group – deciding on characters together, painting and drawing their faces! We will raffle off Olaf, the Ninja Turtle and Scarecrow tomorrow and kids can take them home for their Mid-Term! Pumpkin...