St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

3rd class have had another super month this October in school, read on to see the different activities they’ve been up to!

Rang a trí kicked off October by learning how to multiply, they’re pros at it now and even built an array city showing the different arrays to make numbers. For maths week, we then looked at division and recognised the link between multiplication and addition and division and subtraction. To help us divide, we used skittles in groups and of course ate them after 😋

We also learnt all about plants this month. We learned how plants need air, water, heat, soil and light to grow. Then we planted our own lettuce seeds in science. 🥬We wanted to test out if plants could grow without one of the above elements so we we also planted control pots – one without water, one without soil and one without light, to see if any seeds would grow – they didn’t.

We have also been very busy this month completing lots of fantastic Halloween art.🎨

Firstly, we created egg carton animals. 3rd class used egg cartons for the faces and created a picture by painting their bodies on the cardboard, they turned out so well!

We created some spooky Halloween art including skeletons and pumpkins! 👻🎃

Our final bit of art was creating Halloween costumes for Ms. Roche – including a Dracula, a bat, a clown and many ore, they were brilliant!

Finally, we had a brilliant last day before the holidays dressing up and playing games and painting pumpkins!

We wrapped up the month by finding out we won the most points for speaking Gaeilge so we got to Spin the wheel and won extra Golden time – a fantastic way to end the month!

6th class have been working really hard on their submission to the ReelLIFE Science Video competition. We made a short video all about nettles (and about a few other themes such as women in STEM and the power of science to ease our fears!)

We had great fun researching, creating and filming our film – the hardest part was keeping it as short as possible! We hope you enjoy it!

STEM Flying ‘Ghosts’

We learned all about electricity this week – especially static electricity. We created our own static electricity by rubbing balloons on our hair and jumpers making them stick to the walls and windows. We made some of our ‘ghosts’ fly using the static from our balloons!

Pumpkin Painting

We had great fun painting pumpkins as a group – deciding on characters together, painting and drawing their faces! We will raffle off Olaf, the Ninja Turtle and Scarecrow tomorrow and kids can take them home for their Mid-Term!

Pumpkin Patterns

Here we used our maths patterns with our art to create cool pumpkin patterns! We had great fun mixing colours and using markers to create our Halloween patterns!

Have a lovely Mid-Term Break – from all in 2nd Class!

Today in first class we celebrated Maths Week by going on a math hunt around the school!

We found different 2D shapes, lengths, numbers and worked out our speed while running and doing jumping jacks.

we had to unlock all of these challenges together as we moved around different areas of the school , it was so much fun!

We got a great start to Maths Week in first class by finding 2D shapes in the classroom. Each group got a different shape that they had to search for in the room! Take a look at what we found:

We then made some 2D monsters with the new shapes we had learnt about. Take a look at our creations:

We have been learning about space in Ms. Kane’s class in celebration of Space Week. We learned about the International Space Station, completed some space art and watched some very interesting videos from the well known Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield. We were thrilled when we tweeted about what we learned about him and he saw it!

We decided to carry out a design and make activity based on ‘robotic arms’. We discussed the use of ‘robot arms’ in space and learned that astronauts have to use them when collecting samples and while carrying out investigations outside the International Space Station.

Before we began, we discussed what materials we’d be using and the big engineering questions associated with this activity: how would we make the arm move? and how could we make sure the arm could lift items? Before using the materials, we sketched a plan of our design and discussed some approaches in our pods. Then we got to work!

We used cardboard and brass fasteners to create our robot arms. Making sure that our arms could move freely was really important and we soon found out we needed to check if the fasteners were too tight or too loose and adjusted them as needed. We needed to measure each piece of cardboard and decide where to punch holes so that our robot arms would work properly. This required lots of teamwork and discussion.

Testing our arms was lots of fun! Some pods were successful on their first attempt of trying to pick up an object but other pods decided to make some ‘modifcations’ to their designs. For instance, a cardboard spoon and fork were added to the end of one arm to help making lifting objects easier and others used a felt eraser. Lighter objects were easier to lift and we discussed what materials might be useful for robotic arms that need to be used in space. Lots of great engineering and maths skills being put to use!

Fifth Class are delighted to be back and have had a wonderful month settling back into school. We have been doing some great things in class and have been working very hard.

Our first theme to start off the year was inventors. We looked at a range of different inventors and even came up with our own inventions!

One inventor we studied was Leonardo Da Vinci. We learned that not only was he was a brilliant inventor, he was also an artist, sculptor and engineer. In art we looked at his most famous painting, The Mona Lisa, and decided to put a modern twist on it! Check out our ‘Modern Mona Lisa’ pictures!

On the 14th of September we celebrated Roald Dahl Day! We looked at one of the greatest fictional inventors of all time… Willy Wonka! We discussed some of his wonderful inventions such as the everlasting gobstopper and lickable wallpaper and decided to come up with some tasty inventions of our own. Some ideas were a lollipop that turns you invisible, milking a pink cow for strawberry milk and candy floss that grows back after you eat it.

We have been trying to make the most of the nice weather while we can. We went outside one sunny evening to do some reading!

We are so lucky to have Ms. Kelly in our class. She treated us to some yummy smores during Golden Time. They were delicious and we really enjoyed making them with her.

We also learned all about the colour wheel! We practiced mixing our own colours and created beautiful rainbow art.

Our next theme is all about pollution and environmental care. We can’t wait to share all that we have been doing.

In 4th Class for Maths this month we have been learning about Time. We made a life size clock to help our understanding of time on an analogue clock!

In Art we drew self – portraits with a twist this year as we designed our own masks!

This week we had our long-awaited Bike Day! We took part in activities out in the yard and talked about bike safety. Thanks to Paddy for organising!

We have had a great start to the new year in Ms. Kane’s class. We are happy to be back and were so excited to see our friends again! It’s been a busy month, filled with lots of new learning and some of our favourite, familiar activities!

One of the most exciting things we’ve done is baking! Ms. Kelly has the best recipes and it wasn’t long before we were making lots of new treats! So far, we’ve made flapjacks, cookies and fairy cakes. Baking allows us to practise Maths skills like estimating and measuring in a practical way. We’ve also completed some procedural writing and are keeping record of all of the recipes we’ve made so far. We’re happy to report that our families, teachers and friends have been very impressed with anything they’ve tried!

We’ve also been busy carrying out some STEM challenges and investigations! Our first challenge involved working in groups to build towers that would be able to hold a paper cup. Sounds easy? We could only use 20 paper straws and some Sellotape to construct the tower! It was amazing to see the different designs and how each team worked together to plan, build and review their tower. We’re glad to report that each of the towers held the cup successfully! STEM activities give us an opportunity to develop our problem solving, prediction and reasoning skills in a fun way!

We have also celebrated International Dot Day, Roald Dahl Day and the European Week of Sport! It’s definitely been a busy start to the year!

Lastly, we also went on our first trip of the year to Bray beach! It’s a favourite spot of ours and we were so lucky to get such good weather! We felt like we were on holidays and even treated ourselves to an ice cream to celebrate a very successful month back at school!

Wow, its hard to believe we’re back to school a month already, September always flies!

We have had a busy first few weeks getting settled and getting down to some 3rd class business 😎

Here are some of 3rd on their first day…

We started into the month getting to know each other and finding out different facts about ourselves.. And our teacher!

Our Science focus for the month was The Human Body 🦴🧠 we learned about the different organs and ‘Skelly’ dropped in to show us his!! We labeled our own skeletons organs and even played Who Wants to be a Millionaire (human body style 😎) Then we made our own skeletons from match sticks!

We also learned all about teeth and why it’s so important to look after them and to brush properly! We looked at the different parts of a tooth and different teeth we have in our mouth!

Finally we measured out the sugar that’s in drinks we have and saw just how much sugar was actually in then – we were quite shocked 😲

For European Sports Week we practiced different sports in the hall 🏀⚽🎾

Finally, we spent a lot of time learning how to write a letter! 3rd did a great job learning how to include different features of a letter and then picked someone famous to write to. Some of the lucky letter ‘receivers’ were Ronaldo, Ariana Grande, Adam Sandler, Justin Bieber, Mo Salah and many more 🤩📝