5th Class have been very busy so far in June. Paddy and Mr. Foley set up a fantastic sports day for us with lots of exciting events to take part in. We had lovely warm weather and enjoyed being outside.
First we completed the high jump. Have a look at us soaring to great heights!
Next we competed in some relay races.
We completed an obstacle course
We took some shots in basketball and football.
We ended our activities with a tug of war
Discover Primary Science and Maths 2021 Application
Welcome to our submission for the Discover Primary Science and Maths award for 2021. This is our 16th year taking part in the Awards, although this school year has been a little different! 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 7th 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 an even bigger 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 the 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 ninth 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, and home. We also tried to include maths in these investigations where possible, linking in with Step 4.
Learning all about environmental care 5th class looked at oil pollution and experimented to see which materials are more absorbent for cleaning oil. Ms. Kane’s class looked at Eco Racers and designed fuel-less cars to see how far they could travel.
Junior Infants used magnets to explore materials that are magnetic. 3rd Class Mummified Tomatoes while learning about Egypt and during school closures Ms. Lohan set whole school STEM challenges. One of our favourites was making Homemade Ice-Cream.
We love an opportunity to undertake STEM projects and were lucky enough to undertake a number of Science projects before school closures this year. 6th Class took part in Reelife Science and produced the film Nettles. All classes took part in Science Week including Ms. Kane’s Class learning all about coronavirus and won an ESB Curiosity Box. 5th Class took on a Space theme and 4th class looked at transport and hot air balloons.
Step 2: Technology
The second step in the application is ensuring that technology was used by our pupils. 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 been have loved early programming activities with Beebots while Ms. Wemyss’ 5th class have been using Lego Wedo a lot this year. They have loved getting to play with the kits and programming them and engaging with the interactive lessons using the Lego Wedo software. You can read all about their engagement with designing, building and coding the Lego Wedo robots or building snow ploughs to clear marshmallow snow.
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. Some examples include Kahoot Quizzes, researching projects, and target boards in Maths.
With using technology regularly we recognise the importance of online safety and marked this when we celebrated Safer Internet Day through home learning this year.
As you can see from our submission, we have continued to implement technology in our day-to-day teaching and learning, even at home, 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 was an integral part of our engineering activities.
We like to start our engineers early and Ms. Conway’s Senior Infants began with building Lego Castles this year. Ms. Meaney’s 1st class designed and built their own dog kennels. 2nd Class made and raced their own Rubber Band Racers. 3rd class tried their own engineering challenges too and constructed their own biscuit houses biscuit houses and Knex Rockets and we were very excited that while exploring the theme of space Ms. Kane’s class tweeted about building their Robot Arm which was liked by Commander Chris Hadfield.
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 Junior Infants used patterns to colour their own Snakes and Ladders game and made Paper Aeroplanes with the help of Maths TV.
We love the chance to explore real world Maths whenever we can and one example of this is baking in Ms. Kane’s class focusing on measuring ingredients and timing their dishes.
With department recommendations this year of using open spaces and getting out of the classroom when possible, classes took advantage of this with 2D Shape Hunt in Senior Infants, outdoor patterns in Ms. Cronin’s 2nd class and a Maths Hunt in 1st Class.
Integrating technology with maths is an important skill and application of this can be seen by 5th Class using tablets to work out their Black Friday discounts on class Dojo prizes.
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 were featured in April last year on RTE’s Nationwide Programme to discuss our history of engagement with primary science events through the RDS. This gave us a chance to showcase a couple of strategies we use to promote STEM throughout the school. Typically, classes present their learning during Assembly or at our own showcases but this year was obviously a little different.
Learning from home has challenged us to come up with new ways of using technology to assist distant learning for our pupils. Class used Study Ladder to set online science tasks for pupils and Ms. Lohan set whole school STEM challenges through our school blo such as looking at Magic using pressure with students sending in their own results or featuring walking paper animals with some fun pupil designs.
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!
First class were so lucky to get a visit from Bex to help us think more about creativity.
Firstly, Bex made this gorgeous ‘Creativitree’ with us to get us thinking about creativity:
If you look closely you can see how we are creative:
Bex then helped us to make tinfoil butterflies on her next visit:
During the week 1st class were learning about hot air balloons, we decided to make our construction of a hot air balloon more creative by all making our own unique baskets to put onto them. Take a look at our constructions:
We are really looking forward to learning more from Bex soon!
Ancient Egypt
We spent the month of April learning all about Ancient Egypt. We learned about Tutankhamen, the boy king, all about the pyramids and how they used to mummify their kings as they believed in the afterlife.
Our favourite lesson was one of our Science lessons which involved mummifying a tomato. First, we learned all bout the mummifying process – removing the insides, cleaning the insides, then filling them up with natron (salt). Then, we applied all this new knowledge to our tomatoes. We cut out all the guts and cleaned the insides and then packed it tight with our own special natron. We left the tomatoes untouched for 2 weeks to see what they would look like. We also left a tomato that we didn’t mummify as our control to compare what they would look like. Have a look at the pictures below to see for yourself – the one without the salt went completely mouldy (white and green), the one with the natron remained completely un-mouldy!
We also completed a lot of art based on Ancient Egypt including sunset backgrounds with camel silhouettes, Egyptian jewelry and turning ourselves into pharaohs. We also wrote our names in hieroglyphics!
One Book, One Community
This month we took part in the One book, One Community initiative. We read the book “The boy who harnessed the wind” by
William Kamkwamba which is a picture book based on William’s true life story of how when he was just fourteen years old he figured out how to bring electricity to his village by building a windmill.
We then spent time learning about wind turbines and how they work. Finally, we made our own wind turbine from cardboard, a pencil, string and a paper cup. We used a hairdryer as our ‘wind’ but soon realised cardboard wasn’t working as we thought it might have been too heavy so we changed the material from cardboard to paper and it worked!
Wellness Week
During the last week before midterm, we celebrated Wellness week. This included the themes of kindness, positivity and healthy bodies and mind.
Over the course of the week we took part in sports, had hot chocolate and biscuits, enjoyed a drumming workshop, visited 6th classes healthy body exhibition and ended the week with and ice cream van visiting the school!! It was a fantastic week!
In Senior Infants, we have been learning all about life cycles!
Before the Easter Holidays, senior infants took in our own class caterpillars. We wanted to watch them on their journey from caterpillars into butterflies! They grew from eggs and were caterpillars when we got them.
We kept them in our room and each table looked after them each day. When we came back from the Easter Holidays, we noticed that the caterpillars had made their chrysalides! 👏
We put them into our butterfly garden and then waited for the next two weeks for them to turn in to butterflies …!
Over the next two weeks, the butterflies came out of the cocoons! We left them in our butterfly gardens for a day and then set them free into the wild!
Senior Infants had so much fun getting involved with all of the amazing activities organised for wellness week. Check out what they got up to below…
At the start of the week, we read ‘Have You Filled a Bucket Today?’
We thought of all the different things that our friends and families to do ‘fill our buckets’. Then we planned all of the kind, helpful things that we could do to ‘fill’ other people’s buckets too!
We learned so much from the brilliant ‘Body Fuel’ exhibition that sixth class put together! We looked at the food pyramid and discussed what food would help our body to stay healthy and strong! 🍍🍒🍇 We also read through the great healthy recipes that Ms.Kane’s class had created. Maybe we can try some over the mid-term break! 🍳🥘
We were very excited when an ice cream van came to school!🍨 Lucky us! 😁
We love music in senior infants and it always makes us smile! We were very happy to get to play the drums for the day! 🥁
And we even got to relax with some hot chocolate and biscuits! What a week 😊
We loved taking part in Wellness Week. It gave us a great chance to discuss our feelings and what we enjoy doing to keep our minds and bodies healthy. We also shared some tips with each other about looking after our wellbeing in the future!
We started the week with some Monday Meditation and found that this gave us a chance to breathe before beginning a new week. It’s important to take some time each day to do this. We also thought about some things in our lives that we’re grateful for and completed a ‘Gratitude Jar’ activity.
We also discussed how important exercise is for keeping our minds and bodies healthy. Even a short 10 minute walk each day can clear our head and allows us time to focus on just the here and now. It’s a quick and easy way to look after our wellbeing. We also took the opportunity to play a game of hockey together to test out how we felt after exercise – we noticed we had more energy which was super!
Next on our list of activities to celebrate Wellness Week, we decided to cook a healthy snack for ourselves! Cooking/baking is our favourite time of the week and our quesadilla recipe went down a treat! They were so easy to make – we added cheese, scallions, ham/ chicken to our wrap and they were ready to eat within minutes! They were delicious and we love to learn quick and easy recipes, with simple ingredients that we can recreate at home. Huge thanks to Mrs. Kelly who always has the best recipes!
We also really loved the Body Fuel display we got to attend in the hall that was organised by 6th class! We had great fun learning about healthy alternatives to some of our favourite snacks, looking at their amazing food pyramid for information and taking part in the word scramble! Huge thanks to 6th for creating such informative displays and interactive activities! We learned a lot!
We also felt it was important to share some tips with each other about staying positive and being aware of our own wellness. The amazing positivitree in the school porch gave us a great opportunity to share and read some great positive messages that really lifted our moods! Huge thanks to Michelle and Elaine for the super bright corridors in school too!
Our week ended with some lovely treats we all really enjoyed! Huge thanks so the breakfast club for the delicious pancakes (our favourite!) We also absolutely loved the ice – cream truck that arrived to our school yard as a special surprise for everyone! Part of looking after our wellness is having a nice treat from time to time and this was definitely a great way to end our week!
We really enjoyed taking part in Wellness Week and will definitely practise some of our newly formed habits more regularly now!
Last week we celebrated wellness week in 1st class. We enjoyed loads of activities that relaxed us and made us feel better, have a look at some of the things we did!
We started off the week by looking at different feelings, we discussed how we could feel better if we were feeling down, anxious or stressed and we tried these activities out during the week. Some of these activities included the following:
2. Healthy eating- It is important to give your body healthy and nutritious foods to keep it feeling well. We went to a lovely healthy eating exhibition made by 6th class where we went on food hunts, unscrambled words and learnt about the food pyramid!
3. Exercise- this is a great way to make your body feel better. We talked about all the different types of exercise we can do. Lucky for us we have the King of obstacle courses in our school which means we got to make our body feel better by trying out one he made for us- thanks Paddy Mullen! We ended the course with a lie down listening to peaceful music to relax us.
4. Music- Its great to be creative and do things you love to keep well. We were so lucky to get to go to a drumming workshop where we learnt different rhythm’s and melodies.
5. One of our favorite activities was making ooblek water which was a great experiment seeing it change from solid to liquid. Everyone had a smile on their face during this activity!
6. Stressballs- squeezing and making these relieved all our tension and stress and also made for a great reminder of our well being week!
7. TREAT YO SELF- we ended the week with two lovely days of treats- hot chocolate and biscuits AND an ice-cream from the ice-cream van. I mean how can these two things not make you feel good!
This week was fantastic! We explored lots of different ways to take care of our bodies and our mind. We did some fabulous activities too and had lots of fun!
Check-In Zone
Every day we checked in to our feelings ‘Zone’. This was a great way to think about our feelings and emotions.
We did lots of lovely Mindful Art. We learned that doing simple colouring and drawing is a great way to relax our minds.
Ice-Cream Truck🍦
To end our week we feel so lucky to have had a visit from an Ice-Cream truck to our front yard. We all enjoyed some yummy ice-creams!
Welcome to our final update to our whole school story!
Well done to all those who took part over the last number of weeks, it’s been fantastic to see all your submissions being added together to create our own story, accompanied with lots of superb illustrations!
The final question we needed to answer was: ‘what will our rabbit wish for’?
Check out the brilliant end to our story here!
What a fantastic story! Huge well done to all involved. We hope you enjoy reading!
If you’d like to read about the work by this year’s Junior Infants, click here.
If you’d like to read about the work by this year’s Senior Infants, click here.
If you’d like to read about the work by this year’s 1st class, click here.
If you’d like to read about the work by this year’s 2nd class, click here.
If you’d like to read about the work by this year’s 3rd class, click here.
If you’d like to read about the work by this year’s 4th class, click here.
If you’d like to read about the work by this year’s 5th class, click here.
If you’d like to read about the work by this year’s 6th class, click here.
If you’d like to read about the work by Ms Kane’s class, click here.
We’d love to hear from you – please leave a comment on our posts!
We were the Scoilnet Star Site for December 2013!
