Spring Is In The Air

We are so lucky in Nun’s Cross to have such a beautiful outdoor space for the children to explore. We appreciate in more than ever in spring, when we can take full advantage of learning in the outdoors.

The infants have been busy hunting for the signs of spring and watching the life cycle of the frog unfold before their eyes. They have been busy sequencing the life life of a frog and have produced some wonderful frog pictures during one of their art lessons!

Bubbles in 4th Class

As part of science week 4th class carried out a range of fun science experiments but the one which wowed us the most was their outstanding bubble making contraptions.

In case anyone wants to make one of these fantastic bubble blowers, you can follow the procedure below:

1. Cut an empty drinking bottle in half.

2. Get a clean sock, and wrap it around the open end of the bottle.

3. Soak the bottom end of the sock-covered bottle in bubble mixture.

4. Take the bottle out of the bubble mix and blow.

Who knew design and make could be so much fun.

Science Week In Junior Infants

The Junior Infants are learning all about light and dark this month and included in our topic is colours! As part of science week we have discovered that if we mix the primary colours they make new colours and these are called secondary colours. We had great fun experimenting with the colours and created colour wheel caterpillars in our classroom!

And of course it wouldn’t be science week if there wasn’t some exciting experiments along the way too!

We did the skittles experiment. Our teacher told us that she was going to add water and we had to predict what we thought would happen. Our guesses ranged from chocolate bursting out of the skittles to the water changing colour! We added the water and observed for a while and we discovered that the colour from the skittles dissolved in the water and the water turned all the colours of the rainbow!

And we had to have an explosion! We made our very own volcano. We learned about acids, which taste sour, and bases, which make bubbles! We added vinegar, which is an acid, to baking soda, which is a base and the chemical reaction made our volcano erupt!

Colour Mixing

The Junior Infants have been exploring colour as their science topic this week. They have learned about the three primary colours and today they made a colour wheel by mixing the primary colours to make secondary colours! They turned the colour wheels into a colour caterpillar for each group and they rea;;y brighten up our classroom!

Number Hunting In Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have started learning their numbers this week and we began with a number hunt around our classroom and our school garden! Its amazing how many numbers we found in our environment

Space Explorers In Junior Infants

The Junior Infants are exploring the topic of light and dark this month and their play topic is Space! There is a lot of fun going on that some might say is out of this world!

We created our very own rockets so that we can blast off in to outer space!

We have made our own alien play-doh!

We followed some tricky instructions and made some very impressive UFO and Alien pictures!

We have learned all about how shadows are formed and we had great fun exploring the shadows that our toys can make. We discovered that the shadow changes depending on where the light shines from. We traced around our toys shadows and tried to guess what toys matched each shadow

We have learned all about sources of light and where light comes from. Did you know that the moon is not a source of light, but that it just reflects the light from the sun? Look at all of the sources of light that we brainstormed together! We are a clever bunch!

STEM Challenge in 5th & 6th class

This week 5th & 6th class were tasked with making the longest possible paper chain using only one sheet of a4 paper and staples. There was great perseverance shown by the class and amazingly, the longest paper chain was over 7 and a half metres long. Very impressive work indeed!

Maths Week in 3rd Class

During Maths Week, 3rd class were very busy solving riddles, using their ‘maths eyes’ to spot maths in the environment, participating in an ‘all about me’ maths activity, playing board games, making a ‘human clock’ outside and learning how to tell the time on an analogue clock. Well done everyone!

Maths week in Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have been busy working on patterns for maths week this week.

We looked at some places where we might find pattern and discovered that lots of animals have patterns and its what helps us to recognise them. We also realised that lots of our clothes have patterns on them - can you see the patterns in our clothes?

We made our own patterned socks!

Sometimes patterns repeat themselves! We learned that repeat means to do something again and once we could identify a pattern we were able to repeat it over and over to make a repeating pattern. We had lots of fun making repeating patterns on peg boards, with a variety of manipulatives and in our art too!

Of course, it wouldn’t be maths week in Junior Infants if we didn’t make maths hats! I think you will agree that the creative skills of this years hats are outstanding! Well done to all the children for their efforts!

During assembly, we shared our creations with the rest of the school with our maths hat parade!

Newton’s cradle

In 5th and 6th class this week we were tasked with designing and making a Newtons Cradle which demonstrates the conservation of momentum and energy.

The Life Cycle Of A Butterfly

We hit new excitement levels in Junior Infants today as the children were introduced to real live caterpillars in their classroom. We are so excited to have the opportunity to watch these caterpillars transform into real butterflies right before our eyes. We will keep a close eye on them every day and we cant wait to be able to release butterflies into our school garden!

Spring Planting

The Junior Infants are learning all about spring this month and as part of their topic they have been looking at the different parts of a flower. The looked at some real plants and saw the bulb, the roots, the steam, the leaf and the flower. We planted these flowers then outside our classroom so the bees can enjoy their nectar and we can enjoy their beauty!

Spring Hunt

The Junior Infants made the most of our school garden this week as we explored it looking for all the signs of spring that we could find. We found frog spawn in our pond, we found flowers in bloom as well as flowers that are yet to bloom. We spotted buds galore on the trees and lots of blossoms too. We even managed to spot some birds nests and some birds nesting in our bird boxes that we built last year as part of our Green Schools Day.

ESB Science Blast 2020

Bright and early this morning a group of 27 5th and 6th class students boarded a bus to the RDS Simmonscourt to showcase our Science Blast Projects. Our project title was ‘can we design and make marble runs which last for 60 seconds exactly?’ Having worked on these projects over the past 5 weeks, we tried our best to take great care in transporting them to ensure they would work for the judges.

Science Blast is an initiative which is sponsored by the ESB and run by the RDS. This year 496 projects were submitted to the Dublin showcase, with other showcases taking place in Belfast and Limerick. There are 12,000 students participating throughout the country, with schools from 25 counties involved. The showcase is run over 4 days, where 200 judges appraise the work done by students in all participating schools. It is the younger sibling of the Young Scientist which runs for students in secondary school.

Once we arrived, we were immediately tasked with setting up our display and testing the projects to ensure they all survived the journey without damage. We were very pleased with how our display came together. We were then reminded of the rota for the stall as we had to ensure there was always a team at hand to woo the judges and visitors. On display, we had our projects for demonstration, our project progress folders and our group trailers on the process. It was clear to see that the children really stepped up to the mark and presented their projects excellently to all passing visitors. The confidence and courage shown by the students was highly commendable.

The general feedback we received was a sense of amazement at the projects and the amount of time, patience, perseverance and skill they all took. Lots of passing teachers were taking pictures and hoping to carry out a similiar challenge in their classes.

When the judges visited, we really did ourselves proud in presenting our work. It was a tense time as the judges did not take our word for the marble runs lasting 60 seconds, and they took our their phones to check up on our work.

One of the highlights of the day was when the ESB camera crew visited us. Luckily our boys who were on duty weren’t camera shy and represented us so so well. Well done boys :) We will be keeping an eye out on ESB social media to see if we make an appearance. But just incase we don’t …

There was a great atmosphere at science blast and we spent our free time arranging and enjoying pizza parties, visiting the exhibitions of other schools and participating in the presentations entitled ‘circus science’ and ‘invisible worlds’. We also got to visit some really cool exhibitors which were run by the ESB, the explorium and a quiet room etc. There were virtual reality stations and also numerous challenges where the children would win prizes.

Spring has sprung at Nuns Cross NS

On our return from mid term, spring was most definitely in the air. We noticed lots of changes around our yard and gardens. Most notably we noticed that our pond was inhabited with loads of frog spawn. We also noticed bright yellow daffodils and a number of other flowers starting to open up.

Balancing The Scales

The Junior infants have been exploring weight this week. They have learned the difference between light and heavy and have been comparing objects all week. The children were given a STEM challenge to use their items and work as a team to get the scales to balance. This brought about some amazing team work, collaboration and mathematical language while also having lots of fun!

Science Blast Marble Runs Progress: Week 2

As our second week of marble run engineering comes to an end, we are happy with our progress to date. Some groups began their projects from scratch this week as they learned the importance of a slow moving marble and the importance of slope, material and friction. Some groups have started working on the presentation of the marble runs, and others realised that we will have a limited amount of space to showcase our projects in the RDS. This will have a huge impact on what can be done within the limited space.

Tomorrow we will be showcasing all of our projects to the parents from 2.30 pm where we are hoping to get some ideas and feedback from parents to re-energise our efforts for next week.

Potions in Junior Infants

The Junior Infants have been learning all about capacity this week and we have made magic growing potions!

We had to very carefully make our potions using full, almost full, empty and almost empty measurements and worked hard to mix in magic bubbles. We made them so magic that they even turned colour! We poured our growing potions in the garden afterwards and cant wait to see what grows from them!

Science Blast progress in 5th and 6th class: Week 1

This year, 5th and 6th class are taking part in Science Blast at the RDS on the 3rd of March. Our project challenge is ‘Can we design and make some marble runs which take 60 seconds to complete?"‘ This week we have started to get stuck in and explore some design features - taking into account friction, use of materials, momentum etc.

At this stage in our engineering journey, we are aware that the 60 seconds is a huge target to reach. It will be incredibly difficult and we had contemplated reducing this to a 30 second challenge which we may still do.

Take a look below at our progress to date.

Making snow in Seniors and 1st Class

The children had a lovely time making snow for this months small world. They worked together in groups using baking soda and hair conditioner to create a very life like representation! Great fun was had by all exploring and playing.