From May 30th to June 2nd we celebrated music week in Scoil Mhuire. There were lots of activities in the school including drumming workshops in the hall. We had the school talent show where Alex, Ian, Gabriel, Caoimhe and Natan sang The Bare Necessities in front of the whole school. There were also lots of amazing singing and dancing acts from all the other classes.
Catherine came in as well to do a special lesson with first class in the hall.
We started off with a song and dance to warm up.
Then we were given percussion instruments to play. We used them to compose a piece of music that sounded like a rainstorm. Then we all played along to the song Brewing up a Storm by The Stunning.
Our bean plant grew so much in class we decided it was time to plant it outside in the garden.
We went out to the garden and chose a good spot beside the onions that we planted. John helped us to plant our bean plant in the ground and we gave it a drink of water. Then we had a good look at our onions which are growing nicely. We also had a look around the garden to see what the other classes had planted.
We love reading in room 9 and one of our favorite websites is https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ It is a wonderful website that's free for anyone to join and gives you access to hundreds of books that you can read on your computer or tablet. There are also games and activities based on each story so it is a fantastic resource for reading and learning at home.
In Room 9 we work hard every day to earn three stamps in our stamp book. Most of the class has filled their silver stamp book and last week we got our silver medals.
We are all working hard to fill our gold stamp book. If we get them filled not only do we get a gold medal we also get to go on the super swim!!!
In April the three senior infant classes got a very special delivery; chicken eggs that were ready to hatch in an incubator. The incubator is a special heated box that helped to keep the eggs warm so they can hatch. The Mammy hen usually does this job when she sits on her eggs. The first chick hatched within a day and two more chicks followed in the next couple of days. The chicks had a special house to live in once they had hatched. Room 9 were very lucky and we got to visit the chicks twice. When we first visited them their feathers were wet and smooth. When we came back four days later their feathers were fluffed out and they had grown much bigger.
Unfortunately, the chicks could only stay in Scoil Mhuire for a week. They are back on the farm now enjoying the sun.
At the start of May a man from Sustainable Energy Ireland came into our class to tell us about saving energy.
We discussed all the different places energy comes from and put on a short play about a farmer growing corn.
He introduced us to his puppet friend who was an energy waster. He always left the water running when he brushed his teeth, he never turned the lights or television off when he left the room and he drove to school even though he only lived 10 minutes way. We had to tell the puppet different ways to save energy.
We are already excellent energy savers in room 9. Every week a different helper is appointed Energy Saver and it is their job to remind Ms O'Hara to turn off the lights and the interactive whiteboard. So we were able to tell the puppet to turn off the lights and television, to make sure not to leave the water running and to walk or cycle to school.
Finally, we learned that sometimes when you are cold it is easier and better for the environment if you put on extra clothes instead of turning the heating up. We had a lot of fun having a dressing up race.
In April we went out to the school garden to do some planting. John suggested that we plant red onions as it is the right time of year to plant them. He had cleared a patch in the garden just for us and helped us with the planting. It was a lovely day so we also went for a walk in the convent garden to look at the spring flowers and look at the leaves which were beginning to grow on the trees.
In March we decided to do an experiment which involved planting broad bean seeds. We know that plants need water, light and soil to live and we wanted to see how important each of these things was for the plant's growth.
Our first seed was planted in sand instead of soil. It was given water and light.
The next seed was planted in soil and given plenty of light but we did not water this seed.
We planted another seed in soil. This time we watered it but we put it in a box so that it would not get any light.
Finally we planted a seed in soil and decided to give this seed water and light. Most people predicted that this seed would grow best.
We have been checking on our plants every morning since and these are the results of our experiment:
The seed planted in sand has not grown. This is because seeds need nutrients from soil to grow.
The seed which was not watered did not grow. Seeds need the right amount of water to grow.
The seed which did not get any light grew for a few days but soon the shoot turned white and died.This is because plants need light to make food. When light from the sun helps plants to make their own food it is called photosynthesis.
The seed which was given soil, light and water has been growing and growing everyday. We are taking very good care of it and hopefully we will have some beans soon,
We have been having lots of fun learning the poem "Be Glad your nose is on your face" by Jack Prelutsky. We made up wonderful actions for the poem and even drew some fabulous pictures inspired by different parts of the poem. Here is an animated video of the poem which we enjoyed watching.
We loved this poem so much we were inspired to write our own poem entitled "Be Glad Your Ear is on Your Head". Here it is:
This Tuesday was Pancake Tuesday. We wrote about how to make pancakes. You need flour, eggs and milk. First you mix the ingredients in a bowl. Then you beat the ingredients using a whisk. Next you fry the mixture in the pan. Finally, you let the pancakes cool before adding your favourite topping. Here are some pictures of us with our wonderful writing.
We also got to eat some pancakes. We put sugar and lemon on top. They were delicious!
In December as part of our Green School's Project we had a low energy day. From 9am to 11am we did not use any electricity. We noticed that a lot of the things we use very day use electricity so we had to make some changes. Instead of the electric bell a teacher rang the hand bell to tell us to come in. Ms O'Hara could not use the interactive whiteboard so she wrote our homework down on the whiteboard with a marker.
We opened all the blinds to let the light in because we could not turn on the lights. We were lucky that it was a sunny day! We wrote all about our low energy day and drew some pictures.
You can see some of our brilliant work here.
We want to save energy so that we can use less fossil fuels and help to stop global warming. You can save energy at home by making sure to turn off the lights when you don't need them on, plugging out your charger when you're not using it and turning the heating down. You can even try having a low energy too!
