Ms. O Sullivan’s class were very creative combing the arts with STEM. They created beautiful houses and planted real grass seeds to grow the garden!
Mrs. Mulrain’s Senior Infants had great fun doing experiments during Science Week.
Materials and change – lovely clay coil pots
Mrs Carr’s 4th class getting their hands on the calculators in maths.. A few riddles.. Good fun😊
Mrs Carr’s 4th class enjoyed making a model of human lungs and trying out how the diaphragm movement is part of breathing.
Ms. Campbell’s class were doing experiments with pumpkins!
Science Week 2021 with Mrs Mulhall’s Junior Infants!
Energy and Forces: Forces! We had great fun pushing and pulling different items and deciding if it is best to pull or push! We experimented with our partners, pulling each other up from the chair and pushing against each other with our hands!
Mrs. Carr’s 4th class enjoyed webinars live during Math Week and Science Week and are enjoying experiments in class on heat and air.
Mrs Mulhall’s Junior Infants had great fun celebrating Maths week!
You can check out some of our activities in our photos!
Some STEM activities from 6th class. STEM is helping students enhance their critical thinking skills using science, technology, engineering and maths. The pupils were given an instruction and a limited number of supplies and had to work together to achieve the task.
The pupils were given the task of creating a parachute for a toy army man. Lots of designs were tried out and many tweaks made before the class settled on final creations.
Here, the pupils were given 12 straws and tape and asked to create the tallest freestanding tower possible. The generated some interesting discussions on what makes a strong base.
The pupils were asked to create a launcher to send a toy soldier the greatest distance possible. One group managed to launch the army many almost the full width of the classroom!
2nd Class Walking Water Experiment – 11th November
Ms McDaid’s second class pupils carried out a ‘Rainbow Walking Water’ experiment as part of science week. We set up 5 clear plastic cups and put water and food colouring in to cups 1, 3 and 5. We then folded 4 pieces of paper towels in half lengthwise and placed them in between each cup. After a little while, we began to notice the paper towels were becoming dyed with the food colouring and water. When we came back to school the following day, we noticed a huge change in the colours. We thought it looked like a rainbow. We learned that the water is able to travel upwards against gravity because of the attractive forces between the water and the fibres in the paper towel. Have a look at our photos and see what you think.
12 November 2020
Materials and Change!
The boys and girls in Mrs Mulhall’s class had great fun in Science today! We experimented with different materials.. tissue, plastic, fabric, sponge, tinfoil and newspaper! We examined if these materials are waterproof or not! Check out our photos!
Science
Materials – Materials and Change. 2nd class recently investigated colour mixing using skittles and luke-warm water. We were investigating how materials (such as sugar) may be changed by mixing. We discovered that when sugar is mixed with warm water, it dissolves.
Living Things – 6th Class investigating soil samples taken from around the school environment.
living things: senior infants
1st class minibeast hunt – they collected and examined the characteristics of living things
Energy and Forces
Sixth Class explored electrical circuits and designed their own lighthouses
Materials and Change
3rd class identifying the effects of heat on pancake batter and also their senses!
5th class took part in an ‘eggsperiment’ for Science Week! More pictures available on the 5th class Blog!
4th Class were on a class trip to Glenveagh- a Primary Science Discovery Centre
Lubrication
Materials/energy and forces
To encourage the children to explore and investigate how friction and traction can be reduced by lubricants and to encourage them to evaluate how lubrication can be countered by using oil absorbent materials such as talcum powder
Discovering that oil and water don’t mix
Environmental awareness and Care-
Our school has our 10th Green school Flag and we continue to strive towards maintaining it. We have a green school committee and the children are encouraged to always keep the school litter free, recycle where possible, bring in batteries from home to be recycled. The children and teachers are involved in planting and growing on a regular basis. They are encouraged to be aware of energy usage and cut down on waste.
TECHNOLOGY
Researching topics using tablets 3rd class
Technology helping with science lessons in 6th class.. research and planning.
1st Class using the tablets to help with their phonics
We are currently using technology to communicate with parents and children during the school closures.
ENGINEERING
Senior Infants were experimenting with building with a variety of materials
1st class making 2d shapes using lollipop sticks.
6th Class making structures from marshmallows!. More pictures available on the 6th class Blogs!
MATHEMATICS
Second class Maths. Second class pupils learned about data and tallies. They were given 4 objects to find outside from the school yard and create tallies relating to how many they could see. They also did a survey of traffic that passed by and tallied the results. Also, pupils were given packets of skittle sweets to count, tally and complete bar charts according to the amount of sweets for each colour.
Second Class – Identifying & measuring the lengths of items in the class. The pupils were trying to find items that were half a metre (50cm) and quarter of a metre (25cm).
Active learning in 3rd class using isak9 in maths
Also in our homepage we have examples of Junior classes using whiteboards for maths during MATH WEEK.
STEM SHOWCASE
6th class showcased their magnetic car racing tracks by demonstrating to 3rd class!
The sixth class children enjoyed explaining electrical circuits to the children in second class.
For the past number of years, the boys have participated in the Discover Primary Science and Maths Awards. All the children in the school get involved and they undertake various activities which involve science, technology, engineering and maths (S.T.E.M).
Throughout the year, we will upload pictures of these activities here.
Boats
The boys were given the task of designing and making a boat using only the materials provided. They then had to test the buoyancy of their creation by counting how many marbles it could hold before sinking…..
The materials
Preparation and designing stage
Preparation and designing stage
The results!
The winning group and their boat which held 46 marbles!
Marble Runs
Designing a marble run in science. Each group designed their run using recyclable materials. First class came to test the results.
Army Man Launchers
The boys in 6th class were given the task of designing and making an army man launcher using only specific materials.
check out the pictures where they designed, made, launched and measured. A very productive afternoon.
Visit from Inland Fisheries
Owen Kelly from Inland Fisheries came in to speak to 5th class about their upcoming visit to the school where they will bring in salmon eggs, baby salmon, par, brown trout and eels for the boys to examine. They will also discuss the quality of rivers in Donegal.
Science week 2017 – the boys in 1st/2nd we’re using ICT in the classroom to help sort and classify materials.
