St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

Today in first class we explored static electricity with balloons. Take a look at the items our balloons could pick up.

We also found out that static electricity makes our hair stand up. Look how silly we look!

The children in 2nd Class got a chance to play Ms Fullam’s fiddle in school today

Senior Infants had special visitors this month – some caterpillars! We have been learning all about Spring this month and about lifecycles, particularly the lifecycle of a butterfly.

Our caterpillars arrived into us in their little tub, full of food to keep them full so that they could grow nice and big and get ready to form their chrysalis after a few weeks.

Once they formed their chrysalis, we moved them from their tub into their butterfly net so that they could continue to hang vertically and prepare for when they would change into butterflies.

After another few days, ‘the painted lady’ butterflies came out of their chrysalis as fully formed butterflies. They needed to let their wings harden so they couldn’t fly straight away. They were fed fruit while they stayed in the net.

Once they were strong enough, they were let free and they flew away.

Welcome to our submission for the Discover Primary Science and Maths award for 2022. This is our 17^th year taking part in the Awards and although this school year has been a little different we are starting to get back to “normal”! Once again, we are applying for the Plaque of STEM Excellence. This award is given to schools that carry out extensive work in science, technology, engineering and maths, all of which are very important in St. Peter’s.

This is the 8th year that we have had Junior and Senior Infants taking part in the award! It is great to see the young scientists have so much fun learning about science and maths. Each year we try to put a big focus on STEM across the school, with a whole school approach helping us achieve even more in this area. This has also meant, due to current circumstances, that we have broadened our scope to encourage STEM at home, which has been both challenging and exciting.

You can read all about it and see the evidence below. It has been great to see the improvements we can make towards helping our school incorporating STEM as a way of thinking, rather than as a stand-alone subject.

All of the pupils are seeing that STEM is about the skills required to learn science, technology and mathematics, and how engineering and design processes and principles are used to achieve an outcome. As students of STEM, we identify a problem. We then need to create possible solutions to these problems, which we can then go and test.

Yet again, a huge amount of work has gone into this application. Every single class in the whole school has taken part, so a big well done to all the pupils and teachers! For the tenth year in a row, we are using our blog to submit our award and to link back to our activities that have taken place during the year.

Step 1: Science

For this step, we carried out hands-on science investigations under the four different strands in classes throughout the school. We also tried to include numeracy in these investigations where possible, linking in with Step 4.

• Energy and Forces: This is always a popular strand as it really excites the children with fun experiments to engage in. Check out Ms. Kane’s Winter Olympics inspired Bobsleds, learn about 1^st Class’ Christmas inspired STEM activities featuring Snowmen, Catapults and Lego Sleighs , see how 5^th Class got on with their Christmas themed Lego Sleigh challenge and see Junior Infants Exploring Magnets .
• Living Things: Living in the Garden of Ireland classes love to learn about nature. Here 5^th Class looked at what Plants need to grow while Junior Infants loved learning all about how our Senses work with a senses walk and tasty experiment.
• Environmental Awareness and Care:  Learning all about environmental care 4^th class looked at renewable energy and undertook a Wind Powered STEM Challenge, while Senior Infants learned all about caterpillars and gardening linking in with their Aistear theme of the Garden Centre.

• Materials and Change: Check out how Senior Infants got on Making Butter, find out the best way to dissolve candy canes with this Junior Infants Candy Cane Experiment, look at some of the cool experiments 5^th Class undertook for Science Week under Materials and Change and check out 1^st Class’ Science Week experiments using Jellies.

We love a chance to undertake whole school STEM projects and although curtailed the last couple of years, with a lot of ventilation, sanitizing and distancing pods, we we were able to have a STEM for Fun week with all classes taking part. You can see some of the highlights from different classes with some tweets from 4th Class, 5th Class and Junior Infants

Step 2: Technology

The second step in the application is Technology. Ensuring that ICT is used by our pupils and/or product design using materials (using different materials for design and make projects).

As a previous winner of the Junior Spider Awards, technology has become a part of every-day life in St. Peter’s. We were also awarded the Digital School of Distinction award, which showcased the effort and time we put in incorporating technology into our daily school lives.

We believe this is true for children at all levels. Mr. Kinsella’s Junior Infant class have loved early programming activities with beebots and getting to use the school tablets. Check out how we use IT in Infants

Programming continues in older classes who have been using Lego Wedo. They have loved getting to play with the kits and programming them and engaging with the interactive lessons using the Lego Wedo software.

We see the importance of integrating technology across the curriculum with pupils using cameras, tablets, animoto, and the blog, as well as apps such as Class Dojo and Twitter, to showcase the work that they have been doing during the course of the year. We use our blog weekly to set challenges as Gaeilge for classes with frasa-na-seachtaine

With using technology regularly we recognise the importance of online safety and marked this when we celebrated Safer Internet Day. 6^th Class were delighted to be speaking to RTE about internet safety

As you can see from our submission, we have continued to implement technology in our day-to-day teaching and learning, with maths and science at the forefront of this. You can check out all of our tweets from the year @stpetersbray!

Step 3: Engineering

For the third step of our application for the DPSM Plaque of STEM Excellence, we have had a big focus on the Design and Make element of science. Our staff have worked previously in conjunction with St. Patrick’s College regarding professional development in STEM. A big part of this focused on the Design and Make process, and helped us make sure STEM is an integral part of our engineering activities.

Design and Make Projects are always popular. Ms. Kane’s class used Science Week as an excuse to make Ziplines and Tin Foil Boat , while with the costs of rent in Ireland soaring 3^rd class have decided to build their own houses and started with Making Blocks

Other classes have gotten in on the action with 2^nd Class Building Structures and 3^rd Class trying their hands at designing and making Catapults and Junior Infants undertaking various construction activities.

Step 4: Maths

Throughout our science investigations, all classes looked to incorporate Maths as much as possible and like opportunities to explore concepts in a fun way like celebrating Maths Week in the school. Here 1^st Class are using coloured paper to design beautiful Patterns and Junior Infants have been getting hands on with numeracy

We also love the chance to explore real world Maths whenever we can and one example of this is baking with Ms. Kelly, focusing on measuring ingredients and timing their dishes.

All classes had fun engaging in Maths week with some examples here from Ms Kane’s Class taking part in a Maths Week Quiz and discovering some Maths Magic

Step 5: STEM Showcase

As a school we know how important it is for students to present their work to an audience, especially with all the hard work put into STEM initiatives by pupils and staff. We always love taking part in initiatives like Science Blast and this year has been no different with 6th Class taking on the Science Blast Challenge.

Typically, classes present their learning during Assembly or at our own showcases but these last couple of years have obviously been a challenge mixing groups. That didn’t stop teachers highlighting some of the great work pupils are doing through our School Blog and twitter and we were delighted with restrictions recently lifting that 6th class were able to hold a Science Fair to show off all the work they put in for this years’ Science Blast.

We couldn’t include all our STEM activities as our teachers and pupils work so hard throughout the year on this but we hope you enjoyed reading a few examples from our submission for the SFI Discover Primary Science and Maths Award!

We have been working really hard up in sixth class on our science blast project! Our question was ‘Does the loss of one of your senses impact the information you take in?’ We have done loads of experiments to find out the answer.

We held a science fair in the hall yesterday and every class came to see our stands.

Stand 1: Optical Illusions- we had loads of different optical illusions and asked every child what they could see. This is all about the brain tricking our eyes to see multiple things.

Stand 2: We did an eating experiment where we blocked certain senses to see if food tasted different, and it definitely did!

Stand 3: We filmed videos and did a ‘spot the difference’ (infants were brilliant at finding the differences)

Stand 4: The science of the brain, eyes and ears.

6th had such a lovely day showing off all the hard work they’ve done. We hope all the classes enjoyed too ☺️

We were learning about our senses recently in Junior Infant and discovered we have 5 senses which help us understand the world around us – sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste. Firstly we discussed our senses before watching a short video about each.

Next we decided to test out our various senses with a senses walk around the school. We discovered lots of things we could touch which gave us lots of new vocabulary for how things feel.

Then we sat out in the back yard and closed our eye to see what we could hear and smell before having a look around. We were surprised at all the different noises each person could hear when we all sat quietly – birds, planes, cars, classes working with windows open and more. One house nearby had a fire lighting and we could smell the smoke.

Finally we conducted a senses experiment to see if we could use all our senses while making popcorn. We got to touch, see and smell the kernels of corn. We could feel the heat of the popcorn maker, hear the swirling and popping as they started to heat and explode and got very excited as the smell started to fill the classroom.

Finally we got to use our most important sense for this experiment…….taste. We also noticed that a lot of our STEM activities end with us eating like our melting chocolate and candy cane experiments!

Lastly we recorded the findings of our senses walk and popcorn experiment under each of the senses headings.

We are going to see what senses we use while we are learning in the classroom from now on!

In 4^th Class we have spent some time learning about Renewable Energy and the different types of renewable materials.

We read the story ‘The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind’ by William Kamkwamba which is a true story based on William saving his town by constructing a windmill to provide electricity. To learn more about wind energy, we made our own wind turbines.

Wind Powered STEM challenge

As class we discussed the different materials we could use to build our wind turbines. We tried and tested different types of paper and card for the windmill blades, along with different shapes and lengths.

We worked together in groups to find the best combination of materials that we thought would be best for capturing the wind.  We decided to use card, paper cups, paper drinking straws and string to build our wind turbines.

Testing

We used a hairdryer as our ‘wind’ to test our design.

On a walk around the local area, we noticed that many things are made from concrete, for example buildings, walls and footpaths. So we decided to make our own concrete blocks to investigate how concrete is made and how it can be used in construction.

When the blocks were dry they were quite easy to remove from the boxes. They had a lovely smooth surface!

When all the blocks were ready, we spent some time investigating different ways they could be stacked to build a wall.

We have been learning all about different types of homes and how people live in SESE. The children’s challenge was to create a ‘free – standing’ structure using marshmallows and spaghetti.

Here are our results!

We have been learning all about plants in 5th class. We learned that plants need water, light and the right temperature in order to grow. We decideded to investigate this.

First, we labelled four pots to show the conditions that we would leave this plant in. We looked at sunlight and water.

1. This plant would be watered daily and left in the sunlight.
2. This plant would be left in the sunlight but would receive no water.
3. This plant would be watered, but left in the cupboard so it would not receive any sunlight.
4. This plant would not be watered and would be left in the cupboard so that it would also get no sunlight.

We predicted how our plants would grow.

We planted cress seeds in each pot and then we were ready to put our plants in their places.

We checked our cress seeds each day and watered the plants that required water. After two days we started to notice some changes!

The plant that was watered but got no sunlight had grown! We looked closer and noticed that the plant was not green, but yellow! We compared this too the plant that has sunlight and water and saw that this plant was much greener. We predicted that plants need sunlight in order to grow a green colour!

The other two plants showed no signs of growth.

Three days later, we noticed more changes in our plants!

The plant with sunlight and water had grown much taller!

The plant with water and no sunlight had grown too, but it was still yellow!

The plant with sunlight but no water did not show any signs of growth.

The plants with no sunligt and no water also did not show any signs of growth.

Our investigation showed that plants need both sunlight and water for healthy growth!