Junior Infants loved taking part in Maths week, along with all other classes in the school. We started the week with some number runs and maths games. We got a chance with a break in the weather to do some chalk drawings in the yard, practising our shapes and numbers.
We also got to incorporate some IT into our numeracy lessons. We had great fun using the interactive whiteboard for maths games, try out some of the numeracy apps on the class tablets and even got to do some programming using the school Beebots!
We have been loving #mathweek on third class! We have been very busy doing some fun activities.
We did a STEM experiment and linked in with maths week. This experiment was the water cycle in a bottle. We used capacity to measure the amount of water in the bottle.We made some spooky potions and measured how much liquid was in each potion!We watched maths week t.v and learned some really cool tricks. Dr. Ken Farquhar showed us the maths behind juggling which was really cool.We did some cool riddles on the board together. Can you figure this one out?
We have had a busy start to the year in 6th and have been reading a new novel, ‘Tom Crean’. We are thoroughly enjoying the story about the brave and heroic Antarctic explorer, who hails from Annascaul in Co. Kerry.
We recommend that everyone reads this book as it is truly inspiring and at times, unbelievable!
Tom Crean
Learning about Antarctica has been extremely interesting and we have had many questions about the Earth’s least – populated and coldest continent. Using our atlases we have researched the places that Tom Crean visited on his multiple expeditions and have identified the remote areas that these pioneering explorers discovered.
Inspired by these events we decided to take part in a STEM activity. We began to imagine and wonder, how the explorers survived in these freezing and harsh conditions. We discussed the importance of the materials they used to stay warm and how important effective insulation is. Students were challenged to create a prototype shelter that provides protection from extreme temperatures.
Insulation is a barrier that reduces the transfer of heat energy from one material to another by reducing the conduction, convection and radiation effects. It is extremely important in severe weather conditions – both hot and cold. Since heat will always move to a colder source, in cold climates, insulation slows the heat from leaving the house/ or someone and in hot climates insulation slows down the hot outside air from entering the cool inside. Essentially insulation should maintain a constant temperature; neither too hot or too cold.
We used our engineering skills to design and build an insulated shelter to slow down the melting of ice. We used cardboard, tinfoil, scissors, paper plates, cotton balls and tape to create our shelters. The design process is very important and we sketched our own original designs before coming together to decide on group’s choice of prototype.
We all received the same materials and time to complete the challenge. We had the following criteria to meet:
The design must fit on a paper plate.
The design must include a door that can open and close.
The design must ensure that the ice does not touch the shelter when being placed in for testing.
We discussed what factors can keep something warm or cold and spoke about coffee cups, flasks and coolers.
Teamwork was very important when completing this design and make challenge:
It was very interesting to see the different design concepts that were used. It was also great to see our creativity skills being put to good use and no two designs were the same!
After building, it was time to test!
Each team received a cube of ice and they were placed inside small holders so that they could be easily placed inside our newly designed shelters. Once the ice was placed inside, the 15 minute timer began!
After the 15 minutes were up, we recorded our findings and used small measuring cylinders to calculate how much water was contained in each holder and as a result, which shelter had been best insulated!
Our results varied considerably, which was interesting! The ‘best insulated’ shelter had only 0.5ml of water in the container after 15 minutes. Some shelters had collected 3ml of water.
We discussed the findings and observed that the bigger shelters seemed to offer better insulation in this case. We can’t be certain that this is the case but we felt that they had no gaps in materials too and combined with their size, perhaps this contributed to their success. We look forward to testing again to see if our results remain constant.
Senior Infants have had a great first month back! They have been very busy. Have a look below to see what we have been up to.
Here are our first day in Senior Infants pictures, we’re already excited to compare them when its our last day and see how much we’ve grown over the year!
This month’s Aistear theme was ‘The Home’. We were learning a lot about our homes, different types of home and discussing all about the inside of our houses and the different rooms. In the roleplay area we played house, where there was a kitchen that we cooked for our family and played in role as different characters. In the construction group, we built different types of houses using LEGO. During the playdough station, we created ourselves using playdough mats and in our fine motor station, we cut out and glues different items that belong in different rooms on a blank house sheet.
We have been busy practicing sorting and did a really fun big sort in the hall, have a look at the pictures below.
We have also been practicing our number formation 1-5 so that we are all ready to learn about our new number 6 next week!!
