In St. Peter’s, we have a long history of participation in the RDS primary science events and we were delighted to continue this at Science Blast in early March. We had a fantastic day and we were delighted to share our project and our work in STEM with the Nationwide team recently. Thank you so much to Nationwide for showcasing such an important part of our school!
You can watch the episode of Nationwide on the RTE player here for the next few weeks – our episode is the one from the 17th of April. Let us know if you spotted any familiar faces!
I Hope everyone had a great Easter. Welcome back to the school blog where Mr. Vance will resume reading a bedtime story each school night. There will also be a riddle of the day and lots of other activities. Please don’t forget to post a comment or ask a question.
Clip art illustration of a Easter basket filled with decorated eggs, a little chick and a Happy Easter message.
Although I’m sure it will be a very different Easter than usual I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. We’ll be back on Monday April 19th with more blog posts
Question: What
happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar?
Predict: What
do you think will happen?
You will need:
Small plastic Easter eggs or
real empty egg shells that have been washed out
Empty egg carton
Baking soda
Vinegar or lemon juice
Food colouring (optional)
Tray
Investigation:
Place the tray on the table and
put the egg carton on the tray. If you don’t have a tray, you could put some
newspaper or paper towels on the table. Put your eggs into the carton.
If you have food colouring, measure
1 drop into each egg.
Measure 1 spoonful of baking soda into each egg.
Squeeze some vinegar on top of
the baking soda and observe what happens.
Analyse: What
happens when the baking soda and vinegar mix? Why do you think this happened?
The vinegar and lemon are both acids and
the baking soda is a base. When the acid and the base are mixed together, a
chemical reaction occurs and a gas (fizzing bubbling action) called carbon
dioxide is made. Liquid, solids and gas are called states of matter. All three
states of matter are present in this experiment, vinegar (liquid), baking soda
(solid) and carbon dioxide (gas).
Think about:
What STEM skills did you use in this activity? (Clue: Look at the words in bold
black writing)
STEM Challenge:
Can you make a rubber egg that will bounce
using a real egg and vinegar?
I would love to see pictures of your STEM
activities. You can post them here on the blog, send them to your teacher on
class dojo or send them to the school mobile.
We have
sets of these books in the school. They are suitable from Level 1 to about
level 25/26. There are also resources attached for each book. It reads the
books to the children too!
Click Big Cat and choose a band level
(Remember to start with books that you can read easily)
Click on the book you want to read
Reading Websites
Oxford Reading Tree (levelled readers)
We use sets of these books in
the school also. The books on the website range from about 3-11 years of age.
Please start with books at a younger age level to improve fluency and work your
way up. There is an option to turn on the audio for when books become a little
harder. Always try to read the book without the audio after you have listened
to it.
You begin with a preliminary
test set at grade 3 level (3rd class). It’s important that you do
not get help doing this test as your score will determine what level you will
start on.
As Dr. Seuss once famously said, ‘‘’the more
that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more
places you’ll go’’. We are so proud of how much you all
have improved in reading since the start of the year. It is really important
that you continue to improve during this time at home. Try to read a variety of
reading material: levelled readers (like the readers we have in school), novels
and books of interest, comics, magazines, newspapers, recipes and books that
you have written yourself. Above all else, enjoy it!
When choosing a levelled reader, start at a
lower level than where you think you should be. In other words, the books that
you start with should be really easy for you to read. Reading easy books will
help improve your fluency and intonation (changing your voice as you read).
It’s really important that you notice and practice the following:
full stops (.) – Stop and take
a breath
commas (,) – Pause for a second
exclamation marks (!) – Change
your voice to make the sentence sound dramatic
question marks (?) – Your voice
usually goes up at the end of the question
speech marks (‘‘ ’’) – Change your voice to show that somebody
is speaking
Hearing and recording sounds are an
important part of reading too. It would really help if you tried to write a few
sentences each day on any topic that you like. Try copying one of the sentences
on to a strip of paper and cut the words up. An older brother or sister could
help you to do this either. Mix up the words and reassemble the sentence. Try
to arrange the sentence in phrases, a bit like the way you would say it in a
conversation. The important thing is that you listen to the sounds carefully in
each word before you write it. Often when we rush our writing, we leave out
important sounds. Taking your time will improve your spelling too. Don’t forget
neat writing! Check out the post ‘Reading Websites’ for some books
