Award of Science and Maths Excellence

5th class, along with the rest of the school made pancakes for Pancake Tuesday and explored the effects of heat on liquids. They were delicious!

We planted some apple trees in honour of our dear colleague Aingeal who sadly passed away recently #treesforaingeal

Sue showed us the science behind bubbles and even showed us how to make bouncy bubbles. It was amazing !!

Video Making

5th Class had great fun making videos during “Buddies NOT bullies” week. We made a video to explain what bullying is to the younger classes in the school and we made another video about cyberbullying for the older classes.

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Scratch & Google CS First

5th class have also been taking part in Google’s CS First program. They are very busy working at their own pace on their scratch projects.

Scratch fish project

 

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Nearpod & Seesaw

5th class have their own class blog on Seesaw. We use it for homework and sometimes to record ourselves speaking Irish. Our teacher often posts Maths word problems that we can work on and answer for rewards like a piece of written homework off. During the “beast from the east” we also posted some photos of our snowmen.

Nearpod is an app that we use in class. It allows our teacher to create lessons and we can either do the lesson together in class or as a self paced lesson. We had a virtual reality trip of the Louvre when we were talking about France in our class. Its a really enjoyable way of learning.

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1st Class & 3rd Class had great fun playing and learning all about chicks.

They learned so much about where chicks come from and how to care for them.

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Rang a 6 took part in the explorers education programme delivered by galway aquarium in conjunction with the marine institute. 

The Explorers Education Programme™ aims to build on Ireland’s marine and maritime heritage by increasing awareness of the value, opportunities and social benefits of our ocean wealth and identity.

The children had great fun on the Thursday and Friday of science week showcasing their work to the whole school and wider community 

The children were very lucky to get a talk from a paramedic during science week. They got to see inside the ambulance and learn all about the job of a paramedic. They even got to turn on the siren !

Rang a 5/6 investigated the effects of coffee, tea and coke on teeth in particular with regard to staining.

Rang a 1 created 2D shapes with lollipop sticks – they identified the properties of the shapes (vertices, sides).

The children from all classes got to program small robots during science week. We used ozobot robots who follow instructions through colour codes and we used dash and dot robots who follow blockly commands.

Rang a 5 & 6 went to Brigits garden to take part in the harnessing nature’s energy workshop. They thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot about solar power and wind power.

David McGrath and his PHD student Ciara came to visit our rang a 1 & rang a 2 classes to talk about the pollution of our waterways. They brought some insects that they collected from our local river and were able to tell us that our local river is quite clean as those insects would not survive if the river was polluted. We had great fun figuring out which insects were in our sample and using the chart to determine which insects they were.

Rang a 1 had great fun picking up tissue using the static electricity generated by rubbing a balloon on their heads. Some heads generated more than others.

Rang a 1 have planted some turnip seeds for our incredible edible garden. The seeds have germinated on our classroom window and in about two weeks we will plant them out. They will be ready to harvest in the Autumn.

Rang a 1 had great fun examining our heart rates. First we felt for our heartbeats and then we had fun dancing to one of the gonoodle songs. After, we checked our heartbeats again and they were much faster.

A past pupil of Scoil Mhuire and previous winner of the Lego league came in and gave a talk to Rang a 5 during science week. It was great for our class to hear first hand all the work involved in the Lego league and what the team took from it.

Rang a 5 took a trip to visit our local wind farm. They received a talk from some of the engineers and had a very interesting visit overall.

Senior Infants have been really busy working at their maths stations. They are getting much better at working in pairs and in groups and are learning all their number bonds to 10.

Every Monday morning we get to take out the iPads and tablets and work in pairs on our maths skills. It is great fun and we are getting faster each week at our number facts.

Rang a 1 planted a strawberry plant they received as part of the incredible edible’s programme in a hanging basket while Rang a 3/4 planted theirs in the ground. We are going to examine which plants give us the biggest juiciest strawberries.

Sean in Rang a 4 was kind enough to bring in a lamb from his farm at home. He was proudly named Pat Lam the 4th after the Connaught rugby coach. The children from infants to 4th class all had great fun playing with him and feeding him a bottle.

Rang a 4 were busy learning all about carrots and how to plant the seeds directly into the soil. They also learned about the carrot’s biggest pest the carrot root fly. The carrots are sowed now and we just need to keep the bed weed free and watered and thin out the carrots when they emerge.

Rang a 3 were busy learning all about lettuce and what the seeds need to germinate. We have sown some lettuce now and in a few weeks we will put it out in the garden.

Rang a 3 & 4 really enjoyed using a kit to explore simple circuits and electricity.

Rang a 5/6 investigated the effects of sun cream on leaves. The large leaf had sun cream applied to it and all leaves were left in the sun over a number of days. All of the other leaves wilted and burnt.

Rang a 1 had great fun working in groups to measure the front playground. They each took turns measuring various parts of the playground with a metre stick.

Rang a 3 & 4 had great fun showing off their science experiments and explaining them to the other classes and parents. We are really looking forward to our upcoming science day where we will show our work to the wider community. 

Rang a 5 and Rang a 6 went to Oughterard to visit Electronic Concepts where they manufacture electronic components. 

They had a tour of the factory and got to see first hand how capacitators are made.

The company has been in operation since 1982.

The purpose of any leavener is to produce the gas that makes bread rise. Yeast does this by feeding on the sugars in flour, and expelling carbon dioxide in the process.
While there are about 160 known species of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, commonly known as baker’s yeast, is the one most often used in the kitchen. Yeast is tiny: Just one gram holds about 25 billion cells. That amount of fungi can churn out a significant amount of carbon dioxide, provided it has the simple sugars it uses as food.

Rang a 5 had fun watching the yeast expelling carbon dioxide.

Classes involved: Rang a 5 Ms Joyce