St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

Last week 3rd class once again took on the STEM challenge of the week: Pringle Ringle. This was an engineering project in which students had to create a ring using only Pringles – no tape or glue allowed! The challange required a lot of patience as well as careful Pringle placement! First they had to fill in a recording sheet where they had to guess how many Pringles were in the container and how many they thought they’d need to build the ring. Next, they sketched out their plan. When they completed the task they said how many they actually used to build the ring and reflected... 

Last week 3rd class had the tricky STEM challenge of designing and building a model that represented a rule that they follow at home! This included any chores they may have. They had to plan it out first, design it, make it and test that it worked. Then, make any changes to the model before sending it to me. As usual, I was blown away by their imaginative and creative ideas. Check out the pictures below to see what some of 3rd class do at home for their parents 😁 Well done 3rd class, brilliant ideas! This model explains that homework must be completed everyday at the table... 

This week 3rd class took on the tricky STEM challenge of building their own bridge! They had to research bridges and then design one based on their research. They could use any materials they wanted but the bridge must have been strong enough to hold a food can. Once they had their ideas down on paper, they began the hard (but fun) part – building the bridge. And when this was completed they tested out its strength by using a food can on top. Some had to amend some areas and make slight changes but the results are fantastic, check out the pictures below, I was so impressed. Super... 

                                     Second Class and Materials    Second class have been really busy learning all about materials. We have been examining how different materials are used in our environment.   There is building work happening outside our classroom at the moment and it is a bit noisy. We decided we would experiment with different materials to make earmuffs for ourselves so that we can work in peace!   Choosing Materials  Everybody in the class decided they would bring different things from their house to test for our earmuffs. We collected:  Paper... 

Second and Fifth class decided to join together to celebrate Engineers Week on Wednesday and had lots of fun completing a STEM challenge. We worked together in small groups to try to build a structure that was strong and tall. We had to build using either a square or rectangular shape because we wanted to see if this would make any difference to how strong and tall our structures would be. Teamwork was also very important! We used plasticine and and small match sticks to create our structures. Check out some of our photographs below to see us in action!     We worked really well... 

First Class have been learning all about static electricity this week in Science. Firstly we talked about the difference between static electricity and current electricity. The children shared times when they experienced static electricity like when they touched a hand rail and got a shock or heard crackling noises when they took off woolly jumpers. We talked about why this happens. The children experimented with static electricity by rubbing balloons on their hair to make it stand up!   We wanted to investigate which piece of the school uniform produces the best ‘static’. The... 

The whole school took part in our Green Schools Action Day on Friday the 10th of November.  We dressed in Green and all classes took part in lessons and activities around the theme of litter and waste.  We also focused on our school garden and we looked at improving this area. Junior Infants created a town called Juniorville using recyclable materials they gathered from home. Senior Infants gathered recyclable materials, sorted and classified them before creating their own junk art inventions. 1st class planted some seeds for our school garden.  These included peas, brocolli and rocket which... 

Senior Infants have been taking part in an after-school club based on STEM. Carl Dempsey from Salesforce has been helping out with the club and we’ve really enjoyed welcoming him to our classroom. All of the sessions were based on nursery rhymes or fairytales. We measured this tower and it was the tallest! Session 1 was based on Humpty Dumpty and materials. Humpty Dumpty likes to sit on high structures so we got into groups and built walls as high as we could. The walls had to stand by themselves by the end of the five minutes. We learned a lot about what makes structures sturdy –... 

STEM for Fun with the junior classes started a couple of weeks ago. Here Junior Infants, Senior Infants and 1st Class are brought to the hall each week to work with teachers and parents to engage in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths games and challenges. Check out some of our pictures below (where the adults seem to be having just as much fun as the children!)  

Hi everyone! 5th Class here, and we’re going to tell you all about how we celebrated Engineers Week 2017. Firstly, we explored the work of engineers. We had a special project to complete on the interactive board in school! We also looked at this wordle challenge completed by some of our brothers and sisters a couple of years ago. We’ve started #engweek17! We built a word wall, looked at the work of engineers and we prepared for our afternoon challenge! #5thClass pic.twitter.com/8kgipCJ35I — St. Peter’s Primary (@StPetersBray) March 6, 2017 For Engineers Week this year we: Completed...