To complete this activity, the children cut out the spiral and decorated it to look like a snake. The children then cut along the spiral and attached a piece of thread to the snake’s head. They hung the snakes over a hot radiator. The snake spun as the warm air rose.
The children learned that warm air is lighter than cold air. Warm air rises and cold air comes in to take its place. This causes air currents – both indoor and outdoor. These are called convection currents.
Making rainbow spinners!
Objectives: Investigate the Splitting and Mixing of Light
Skills: Experimenting, Observing
Through investigation the child were enabled to investigate the splitting and mixing of light. The children learned that not only can white light be broken up into the rainbow colours, but also that the rainbow colours can be brought together to produce white light. They also learn about persistence of vision (i.e. that if things move fast enough the eye cannot distinguish between them and they merge).
Science week will run from the 13th to the 20th of November. We will be undertaking a number of experiments with the children and over the course of Science week and beyond, RTÉ will be putting science centre stage. ‘Phil the Science Guy’ will make an appearance in the new RTÉjr series, POP Goes The Weekend, beginning Saturday 19th November, while Swipe TV and the Swipe TV app will feature a range of science-themed content throughout the week.
The order for the Science Apprentice Book Collection has been placed. For those who have ordered the collection, one book, plus a copy of that day’s Irish Independent, will arrive at the school on the 14th, 18th, 21st, 25th and 28th of November.
Making a Water Fountain
Objectives: Explore the effects of heating liquids
Skills: Experimenting, Observing
In this experiment, the children learned that air expands as it is heated. When the half-filled bottle of cold water (with added red dye) was put into hot water, the air inside the bottle expanded and pushed the coloured water into the straw and out the top like a fountain!
Sound Insulation
Objectives: Appreciate the importance of hearing
Explore how sound travels through materials
Identify materials that muffle sounds
Group materials according to their properties (ability to muffle sounds)
Skills: Fair testing, Estimating, Measuring, Investigating, Analysing
In this experiment, the children demonstrated the varying degrees of noise insulation by filling the polystyrene cup with the same quantity of different materials (fair test using cotton, crepe paper, bubble wrap, playdough, tin foil, tissue). While using the same sound source, the child with the beaker changed the contents of the cup. The sound source moved away from the child with the cup until he indicated he could no longer hear it. They then measured the distance at which the sound no longer transmitted to discover the playdough absorbed the most sound and the cottonwool and crepe paper absorbed the least. 
We made vegetable soup today! We used our very own potatoes, onions and carrots; dug up by the children earlier in the week. With adult supervision, they washed, peeled and chopped up the vegetables. They added 2 stock cubes and boiled them for approximately 15 minutes. They then used the liquidiser to blend the vegetables until smooth! It went down a treat!
Some of our “How to Make Soup” procedures
Strange Sounds
Objective: understand and explore how different sounds may be made by making a variety of of materials vibrate
Skills: Experimenting, Observing
The children undertook 3 experiments investigating sounds in its different formats. The children could “see” sound as they struck the saucepan with implements. The children dicovered that the distance of the saucepan from the rice effected the intensity of the vibrations. They also discovered that the metal spoon created greater vibrations. The children could “hear” vibrations through the balloon and the children created sounds of different pitch by cutting straps in different lengths and blowing through them. The children also learned about how sound travels and how we hear.
