St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

We having been learning all about plants in Junior Infants. We learned plants need water, air and sunlight to grow.

We have been growing egg heads – here is our procedural writing for how to make them! Check out our bossy verbs and our list of things that you need to make the egg heads.

What you need:

• Cress seeds
• Eggs shells
• Soil
• Googly eyes
• Felt tips

How to:

1. Boil the eggs until they’re hard boiled. Take the tops off gently and clean the inside of the eggs gently, so they don’t break.
2. Stick googly eyes on our egg shells.
3. Next, draw a face on the egg shells with felt tips.
4. Fill the empty shell full of soil.
5. Put some cress seeds on the soil and press them down gently.
6. Finally, place the egg shells in a sunny, warm spot – we placed ours on the classroom windowsill.

We enjoyed looking at the different stages of growth. We water our cress heads every day. We learned plants need water, air and sunlight to grow.

When the cress gets green leaves on top of the stalks, you can eat it! Cut the tops off the stalks and try them in a sandwich or a salad.

Here are some of the pictures:

This is the equipment that we needed!

We made the soil damp to help the seeds grow

We filled the eggshells with soil!

Here we are planting the seeds!

Last week, 2nd class read a wonderful book called Iggy Peck Architect by Andrea Beaty. In this story there’s a little boy who is always building things. When he went on a school tour, the bridge to their picnic area collapsed and he and his class had to build a new bridge to get back across. This got us thinking about how we could make bridges. We looked at a few different types of bridges and their structures and talked about local bridges we know of. This was all under the strand of Energy and Forces.

We then got into pairs and drew a plan of the bridges we wanted to make. We looked at all the materials that were available to us and made a list of what we would need. Then we got our materials and worked together to build the best bridge that we could. We used paper plates to represent the river to make sure the bridges were wide enough. We also discussed the term ‘best’ and what it meant in this context. We decided it would mean that it held strong without being touched, that it went across the paper plate and that it was stable enough for a small figure to walk across it.

We came across some challenges as we went along, like not having enough of some materials, or the straws not being as strong as we thought they were. We learnt that they need a really solid, heavy base to stand and that it’s important to use enough tape so it doesn’t fall apart. We found that the strongest bridges tended to be corrugated paper ones.

Once we had our final bridges, we presented them to the class, discussing how we made them, challenges we had to overcome and how the result differed from out original plan. We also measured them in centimeters using our rulers. We are doing length in maths so it was interesting for us to see what made some taller than others. We also talked about how the ones that were 25cm and 50cm tall were the same as a quarter meter and a half meter.

We were delighted when we shared this on Twitter and Andrea Beaty (who wrote the book that got our ideas started) saw it and commented on it! As budding scientists, engineers and architects, our favourite quote from the book was

“There are worse things to do when you’re in grade two than to spend your time building a dream”.

2nd class designed, made and measured some wonderful bridges after we read #iggypeckarchitect by @andreabeaty @DPSM_Activities pic.twitter.com/6en2wDIX2G

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) April 19, 2018

5th class conducted an experiment this week using the strand energy and forces and the strand unit heat. The objective of the experiment was to measure and record temperature using a thermometer. The children had to compare the heat insulation properties of different materials. These materials included, aluminium foil, fabric and tissue paper. Each group had to ‘insulate’ their cups using the materials provided. Each group was given a recording sheet and the children had to check the temperature of each cup throughout the day.
When the children had finished their experiments, they wrote a short synopsis about the experiment and its results. They also calculated how much the temperature decreased between each reading. We discussed what insulation material worked best according to the children’s findings. We also discussed, as a class, what they learnt about heat insulation and what other ways they think we could carry out the experiment.

The children had great fun designing their heat insulators!

Recording their results

The children with their heat insulators

STEM challenge number 1: Design and make a paper aeroplane which can float.

6th class passed this test with flying colours 🙂 !! They were tasked with designing and making a floating paper aeroplane. With a homework pass at stake for the winning design, we had some heavy negotiations about the best and fairest test to grade our designs.  We decided that our floatplanes would need to carry/hold 5 marbles when floating.

We worked in pairs to design and make a paper floatplane.  It was important to use waterproof materials for this task, but also to ensure our designs could also function as planes.  We trialed many deigns both in the water and through distance flying.  We were allowed to measure the distances our planes travelled and also how long they floated and how much weight they could bear during the design process.  This helped us to improve design.

Here are some of our results!!

Welcome to our blog!

We hope you enjoy exploring all the great learning and fun activities that make our school such a special place to be.

We were delighted to take part in the FIRST Lego League Competition in Galway again this year as part of our Lego Club. This was our third year to enter the competition and we had a brilliant time again.

There are 3 main elements to the competition – The Project, Core Values and The Robot Game & design

Problem

For the project this year we were asked to look at ways we find, use, transport and dispose of water and how we could improve this. We started looking at all the ways we use water in our lives. At Lego Club we split into groups and listed all the ways we use water every day. Then we wrote as many ideas down on ways we could save water. That’s how we came up with our idea.

Research

Through our research we found lots of interesting facts on water use.

• One full basin of water holds 6 litres
• Leaving the tap running in the kitchen sink uses 8 litres a minute.

Existing Solutions

Through our research we found there are 3 types of water – White Water, Black Water and Grey Water.

• White Water is clean fresh water that comes into our home through pipes.
• Black Water is water we use that we must dispose of – like toilet water.
• Grey Water is water we use that could possibly be reused again.

Our Solution

We developed a solution that looks at saving “Grey Water” from the kitchen sink to reuse again. Not all water could be reused but water left running or water from washing vegetables can be reused.

Our idea started off originally with the idea of having a bowl or cup catch water in the sink but as we began talking about it we started to develop our idea into an under sink tank, splitting the waste pipe and with one switch instead of two.

We would reuse this water to water plants and bushes.

Manufacturing

We decided we wanted to make a prototype of our idea. We made a list of items we might need and took a trip to Woodies to see what we could find. In the plumbing section we compared pipes and fittings. We changed our mind on using a Pedestal Trap which was €12.49 and replaced it with a Double Ended Waste Pipe for €4.79 to keep the cost down. Our Flexi Waste Pipe cost €9.49 each and we picked up a storage box for €6.49

The total cost to manufacture our product from our figures is €30.26 but we reckon we could improve the quality of the water storage container and cut down on the overall cost by buying items directly from the manufacturer.

We would also like to create a bigger version of our idea with an outside storage tank and a pump which could be used to pump water to toilets or be used to water the garden in hotter countries.

Sharing

We have shared our idea with a number of people so far. We spoke with the local council. We also visited St. Kevin’s in Glendalough, who are also taking part in the competition, and shared our idea with them and competed in the FIRST Lego League Competition in Galway.

3. The Robot Game & Design

The third and final part of the competition is the Robot design and robot game. This involves programming the EV3 Lego mindstorm to complete missions around the Lego table. We found the missions challenging but really enjoyable.

Having taken a look at our school garden we agreed that it needed some love and attention.  We decided this was a project to work on in the school as part of both our Discover Primary Science and Maths project, and our sustainability project.  In 6th class we all drew our own pictures and wrote short descriptive pieces of writing about how our garden currently is.  We then put our landscaping skills to the test in planning how we would like our school garden to be.  We also did some video interviews on yard at break time with children from other classes to get some of their ideas.  We discussed possibilities and in the end we had to be realistic with what we were hoping to achieve.  Here is a sample of our garden transformation so far…

Dylan and Billy loosening the soil before we sow some flowers.   We realized we will be needing to give some TLC to the grassy areas.  We hope our finished garden will have lots of luscious grass.

Ms Barret working with Casey and Amber to fill our raised beds. We tried out a few different designs before deciding.

We decided to keep our other raised beds to sow some pumpkins.  First class are going to sow some pumpkins in the coming weeks.  We hope we will have a pumpkin for each class next Halloween.

Amber sowing a climber which will decorate our garden fence when it flowers.

Huge thanks to Liz for collecting some colourful welly boots to add even more colour. Any more old pairs are welcome.

Raised bed perimeters painted by Brooke, Kia, Kelsey, Brigid, Amber and Caithlin.  6th class working very hard to loosen soil by the fence and sow lots of daffodil bulbs which will hopefully flower for us next year.

We painted old tyres and sowed some flowers inside.

We found some nice ideas on Pinterest and we decided that because our garden is quite small in area, we need to make the most of the surrounding fence. We decided to recycle plastic bottles to make herb ladders. This process involved concentration and precision to ensure the bottles remained parallel. 6th class boys took the lead on this project.

Jerry and Maddie from 5th did some running repairs and positioned the herb ladders on the fence.

Senior infants are very inquisitive about the transformation which is happening in the garden during lunch times.

Second class taking advantage of the recent good weather and sowing our herbs into the herb ladders.

Ryan and Billy trying some new ideas for securing our bamboo bee hotels. We used bamboo with different diameters to attract multiple varieties of bees to our garden.

Billy experimenting with design features.

Brigid and Brooke making some more bee hotels.

Dylan and Ryan securing the bee hotels to the fence.

An injured bee found on yard was helped to the bee hotel. We hope he enjoys our new additions to the garden.

Handyman Dylan putting the finishing touches to our bug palace or Buggingham Palace as we like to call it!!

Dean and Kelsey are organizing the different areas of the palace to entice the minibeasts in.

Colourful tin can wind chime designed by Caithlin.

Ava joining us at lunch time to secure our wind chimes without restricting them.

Maddie positioning some bunting to further brighten our garden.

What a difference a fortnight of school makes.  So much work has been done by the children so far, with more projects in the pipeline to further enhance our garden. Amongst these are a wishing well and a fairy door!   We are also taking an allotment in Fassaroe in which 5th class will be sowing a variety of vegetables.

Today 6th class welcomed Mr Gavin Duffy to St. Peters for Dragons Den.  He was joined on the panel by Ms Whyte, Mr Foley, Mr Kinsella and Paddy.  Each group battled their nerves to put on an amazing array of presentations where their products for Junior Entrepreneur were scrutinized by the judges.

The groups presented:

1.  A clever sun hat with added technology
2. Slime
3. A phone holder
4. A torch
5. Stress balls
6. Grassy heads
7. A music speaker with crafts
8. Handy holders

All groups received incredible feedback from the Dragons, who couldn’t decide between two products in the end. Well done to everyone involved! Now to get working on ur products which will go on sale at our showcase in March.  These include grassy heads and stress relieving toys.

Back in action! #4thClass pic.twitter.com/xMjJEmnGvI

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 8, 2018

Hi everyone!

Happy New Year! We hope you are all well and ready to have a super 2018.

Here is what we have been getting up to.

Did you see our lovely art work recently?

We are learning about Van Gogh in #4thClass. We used oil pastels to create tributes to Starry Night, his famous painting. #creativeschools pic.twitter.com/9vearRWhOk

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 19, 2018

We are enjoying our brain breaks on Go Noodle!

Well, it is awards season! #4thClass are getting their heart rates up by dancing and dodging on the @GoNoodle red carpet! A perfect start to a wet and dark Tuesday. @OpTranRTE #activeschools https://t.co/FPAl9aWZm5

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 9, 2018

We started a new book.

We are absolutely thrilled to have started our latest novel, Warhorse. We’re learning all about historical fiction. Reading fiction like this is a super way to learn about history. #literacy #4thClass pic.twitter.com/Mvd5QHsoXo

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 9, 2018

The Guided Reading workshops are great fun.

We have started another four week run of our reading workshops. #literacy #4thClass pic.twitter.com/Ili0XCpQSg

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 16, 2018

We’ve starting boxing classes with Jaiden’s Dad!

Now we have boxercise with J’s Dad! It is great to get the heart rates up! #activeschools #4thClass pic.twitter.com/GwP3SDyHRs

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 16, 2018

We are still coding, and working on STEM projects.

Super #STEAM work in #4thClass this morning with our @LEGO_Education WeDo 2.0 construction work! The boys made cars. We also had great work on @NessyLearningUK and excellent literacy work on Warhorse, our latest book. pic.twitter.com/eE2vpxZrmc

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 16, 2018

Look at our @LEGO_Education WeDo 2.0 froglets on the move in #4thClass! We made a boomerang video. #STEAM #STEM #coding https://t.co/zXdAVXwfpB

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 15, 2018

So proud of our work today! Our #6thClass visitors today made some great @LEGO_Education models with WeDo 2.0. Well done guys! #classspirit pic.twitter.com/Bm1XvOvlwN

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 15, 2018

We got a tweet from Lego to encourage us further!

Wow! 😍😍😍 Keep up the good work, team! 👏

— LEGO Education (@LEGO_Education) January 16, 2018

STEM4FUN has started!

Wow! 😍😍😍 Keep up the good work, team! 👏

— LEGO Education (@LEGO_Education) January 16, 2018

We had a fantastic music workshop.

When a classroom turns into a dancefloor! @eomac_music and @StPetersBray at last week's #classroomconcert. #musiceducation #technotuesday pic.twitter.com/brdD1le4eP

— DabbledooMusic (@DabbledooMusic) January 18, 2018

Producers of the future at our #classroomconcert with @eomac in @StPetersBray @#ableton #MusicEducation pic.twitter.com/PgGUWAtg9E

— DabbledooMusic (@DabbledooMusic) January 12, 2018

We are so excited to welcome @DabbledooMusic and @Eomac into #4thClass for a music workshop today! Eomac is an artist, musician, DJ and label owner. He is a big name in electronic music, and he’s Irish but based in Berlin. #creativeschools #edchatie pic.twitter.com/xQqpXelABy

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 9, 2018

Such a fantastic experience watching @DabbledooMusic and @Eomac at work in #4thClass. Such a great opportunity to watch music being produced and performed right before our eyes! We’re also looking at the technology used in electronic music. #creativeschools #edchatie pic.twitter.com/RGQa4t2Hgn

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 9, 2018

Looking at a Launchpad up close! 🎧@DabbledooMusic @eomac #4thClass #musicinschools https://t.co/VmiRGHJkwB

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 9, 2018

Sometimes you have just got to move! When the beat takes over! @DabbledooMusic #4thClass #creativeschools #musicinschools https://t.co/iQvXpNE6Mq

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 9, 2018

We are trying very hard to improve our attendance all the time.

Exactly what we love to see! Full attendance booklets in #4thClass! Keep it up boys and girls! #schoolspirit pic.twitter.com/wWztP71hUN

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 10, 2018

The meditation exercises that we are doing are really helping us in class.

Meditation and relaxation time. ✨ #4thClass pic.twitter.com/rHgilUdW5e

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 10, 2018

Our writing workshops are going from strength to strength.

We are working on a new genre in our Writing Workshop this month! We are improving our procedural writing. This week we are reading lots of recipes, instructions and rules. #4thClass #literacy

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 10, 2018

Procedural writing in the Author’s Chair! We’re helping each other to improve our writing. We share our work and we encourage each other to improve our Writing Workshop drafts. #4thClass https://t.co/lw4FtnTjZ0

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 11, 2018

Sometimes we work in smaller groups, sometimes we work with the whole class. It helps us when our friends give us suggestions. We have two big class binders of our best writing work this year! #4thClass pic.twitter.com/c3k4M8v0rE

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 11, 2018

We are really enjoying the @LiteracyShed in #4thClass. Our oral language work today was on advertisements and we used some of their excellent video resources to help us! #literacy

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 11, 2018

Our Drama work is so enjoyable!

Fantastic Drama work in #4thClass this afternoon. Super group work, mime, games, improvisation and circle activities completed. Loads of fun! 🎭

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 11, 2018

Some lucky students got to cook with Ms. Fitzpatrick!

What a treat! Thanks to Ms Fitzpatrick for making French Toast with us! #4thClass pic.twitter.com/iQonNiwPwb

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) January 11, 2018

We have been working on our oral language!

Revising our oral language conversation prompts from this term! #4thClass #literacy pic.twitter.com/WKngtO1l6u

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 11, 2017

The four students in our class who won the Dragons’ Den competition got to visit Salesforce!

A big thank you to @SalesforceOrg for giving these #4thClass students such a great day out on Friday. They have told us wonderful things today! pic.twitter.com/TZx7VrxMLU

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 11, 2017

We have been having excellent conversations based on the news, and what we have seen on News2Day!

We have been so busy doing Maths revision in #4thClass! We are taking a small break to watch @news2dayRTE! It is so interesting to learn about the world in this way. pic.twitter.com/jb7UMdNdt5

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 12, 2017

The fun continued with our Advent Calendar!

The excitement of the class Advent Calendar continues! Treats like a cuppa with our classmates and a little popcorn party sit in the boxes. It is the small things that put a smile on our faces! 🎄🎅🏻 #4thClass pic.twitter.com/QKFUU4zTia

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 14, 2017

Today’s little Advent Calendar treat is a chance to look at one of Mrs R’s favourite Christmas shows when she was a child! The Den Christmas Crisis! #4thClass @RTEArchives pic.twitter.com/6Fb5yzA1tC

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 19, 2017

We had the BEST time practicing for our play, The Three Pigs.

A sneak peek at what lies ahead in our show, The Three Little Pigs! Looking forward to the performances next week! We are working so hard. #drama #schoolspirit https://t.co/qkI6ySpVw9

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 15, 2017

We had a VIP come to visit us!

VIP in the house! The big man himself, Santy! You’ll be thrilled to hear that everyone in #4thClass is on the Nice List! Phew! Thanks for the candy canes Santy! 🎅🏻🎁 pic.twitter.com/vctdtfsKQM

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 18, 2017

After the Junior & Senior Infant play yesterday, and 1st & 2nd Class play today, tomorrow sees 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th put on The Three Little Pigs! pic.twitter.com/bl595n3XTE

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 20, 2017

So proud of our boys and girls for their amazing afternoon performances. If you missed our performance of the The Three Pigs you can catch us at 7pm in the hall tonight!

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 21, 2017

We also got to enjoy performances from the other classes!

Such a treat! We are getting to see our Junior & Senior Infant and 1st & 2nd Class friends perform! #schoolspirit #4thClass pic.twitter.com/7qRgHhK3eK

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 19, 2017

We enjoyed lots of PE.

Co-operation games and a chance to have a run around during PE! Exercise is so important at this time of year! #4thClass pic.twitter.com/I7FGunv6iK

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) December 20, 2017

We hope you enjoyed our monthly catch-up!

We are loving taking part in the Junior Entrepreneur Programme.  Today we were visited by entrepreneur and businessman Brian McGovern.  We were extremely inspired by his business journey which he started when he was in 6th class.

We are now super motivated and we feel confident and ready to take on the dragons in Dragons Den on Monday.