We had a great month in senior infants this month – we were learning all about The Sports Shop in Aistear. We played in our ‘Lifestyle’ Sports shop during our role play area, designed and made our own GAA jerseys from different fabrics in our art station. We designed the layout of our own sports shop using large Jenga blocks and designed our own obstacle course and then made it from LEGO.
Our Lifestyle Sports Shop
We celebrated Science week during November. We carried out an experiment in class – we added gummy bears to water to see what would happen – they grew larger! We also got to spend time in the hall doing different experiments in stations, they were very cool. The stations included Bee-bots, LEGO, making bubbles, making paper aeroplanes and making the tallest tower possible from plastic cups.
Science stations in the hall
Science stations in the hall
Our gummy bear experiment
Our gummy bears grew
Finally, this month we celebrated Anti Bullying month in school. Senior Infants spent a lot of time learning about what bullying is (repeated, unwanted behaviour that is on purpose). We talked about ways to be a buddy, not a bully. Then Senior Infants gave their thoughts on what they felt bullying was to them.
We were delighted to take part in STEM for Fun recently in the school hall. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Different stations were set up around the hall all containing elements of STEM.
Junior Infants really loved the different challenges. They were tasked with constructing the highest tower they could out of paper cups and giant playing cards.
They also had to make their own paper planes and measure to see how far they travelled counting in steps.
It was very exciting getting to explore programming with Beebots, trying to input the correct instructions so the beebot could escape the maze.
They experimented with making friction bubbles using soapy water on a flat surface and almost made a bubble within a bubble (unfortunately we could figure out how to keep them from bursting)!
Finally, they had to help the poor Gingerbread Man cross the river by designing and making a Lego Bridge.
We had great fun and can’t wait for the next time. Special thanks to Ms. Whyte and Ms. Sexton for running the stations.
This month in first class we have learnt all about what bullying is. We know that bullying can:
hurt your body
hurt your feelings
damage your things
We began the month by looking closely at how we can be better friends and took the chance to interview people in our class we wanted to become better friends with over the month. We have been encouraged by PAP which allowed us to win points for showing kindness.
We continued the month by learning about ytpes of bullying and the effects it can have on people. We know the best way to stop bullying is to tell! Take a look at our tell song: h
As you will all know by now, our school is participating in the Creative Schools programme.
We are excited to be moving to the next stage of the programme after working hard to collect information from students, parents and staff about what creativity means to each group, how we already take part in creative activities and what we can do to improve our school’s approach to creativity.
A huge thank you to all for your responses, they have been really helpful in deciding how we should move forward in the programme!
Our students are currently considering the possibility of creating an outdoor learning space in our school. It’s very important that the ‘student voice’ leads our new initiative as this space will be an area for their learning to take place.
Here are some considerations that our students are taking to account:
If you have time to discuss some ideas with your children at home or any ideas that you think could work in an outdoor learning space, please don’t hesitate to get involved 😊
We are looking forward to seeing our ideas come to life over the next few months!
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 and had a look at the ‘Creating our Future’ website https://creatingourfuture.ie/. These ideas included making sure there’s enough food in the world for everyone to eat, the possibility of teleporting, how robots might help us with homework and whether holidays to space will be a possibility for everyone. We discussed ideas in history that might have seemed impossible without Science such as electric cars, flying aeroplanes and mobile phones.
We watched coverage of COP 26 and were most impressed by Sir David Attenborough’s address to the delegates. We discussed the devastating effects of climate change on the world and what we must do to reverse these changes.
We love taking part in Design and Make activities and were delighted to use the PDST and Dr. Niamh Shaw and the Ark’s resource about ‘Treasuring our Earth’. We began by reading a short story about a bird and 3 eggs at risk from a forest fire. We remembered the awful forest fires we had seen on the news from around the world and knew the bird and her eggs would be in trouble if they didn’t move quickly.
We began to design a zipline that they could use to safely move from dangerous trees/ branches to safer ones. We looked at some videos of ziplines online and even found out that some children in the world travel to school via ziplines! We discussed the fact that angle of the zipline is important and will probably be in shape of an acute angle. Michael pointed out that it shouldn’t be too steep as the nest and the bird want to travel safely to a new branch. We used some elastic string (used to wrap presents) as the zipline, as we felt it was the right texture to allow the nest and eggs to move along smoothly. We created the eggs and nest using cardboard.
Zipline construction
Angles were important!
Discussing initial plans.
The height of the zipline needed to be adjusted a few times.
Creating the nest and eggs!
We tried lots of different materials to carry the nest and eggs safely from the ‘top branch’ to the lower ‘safer branch’, including wool, pipe cleaners and string. None of these materials facilitated a smooth journey. Liz suggested that we try a paper clip and we were delighted when this allowed the precious eggs to travel safely. We had made a brake system out of a cotton bud but luckily the angle of our zipline meant we didn’t need to use it. Luke made sure that the eggs ‘landed’ safely by adding a ‘cushion’ of pipe cleaners to the end point of the zipline.
We wanted the eggs to travel safely…
The zipline needed to be strong and smooth…
We used cardboard eggs first…we might be brave enough to try real ones now that we know our design was solid!
A safe landing pad.
Huge thanks to Luke for creating a safe and solid space for the nest and eggs to land.
This design and make activity included lots of science, maths and engineering as well as technology which helped us to decided on the design of our zipline. A great chance for us to practise lots of different skills!
It’s anti-bullying month in St. Peters and we have been learning about ways in which we can lift each other up. We created this art display based on the film ‘Up’ using a variety of materials. We wrote positive notes in the balloons which remind us every day to be kind to each other!
Junior Infants were very excited about Science Week. This week, along with STEM for Fun we got to explore magnets and how they work. Early in the week we explored magnetism. We talked about what magnets are and watched a short video on magnetism. We then investigated things that were magnetic by testing our magnets out around the school and yard outside.
During Aistear we got to explore magnets and magnetic objects more. We used magnets to test items that might be magnetic and categorise items that were magnetic and non magnetic.
Finally at the end of the week we looked at a group of items as a class and use our prediction sheets to draw and try to predict which items were magnetic and which were not. We then tested these out to see if our predictions were correct.
