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. 
Working in pairs!
Lidl Brochure Maths Trail
Lending a hand! ✋
“Drawing with numbers”
Maths eyes!
Mathematically creative
Time to think outside the box
Deal or no deal
Puzzling
Beggar my Neighbour card game
Dice games!
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.
Skills:Working scientifically: questioning, observing, predicting, estimating and measuring
Content Strands: Maths: Numbers, Fractions.
Shape and space: 2-D shapes, 3-D shapes.
In this investigation, the children created a scale model of the earth and moon. They first estimated the size of the moon in relation to the earth and then the distance between the two. With the information that the moon is a quarter the size of the earth, the children proceeded to measure the circumference of the classroom globe using string. They divided it in fours by folding and inflated a balloon to correspond with the measurement. Knowing that the distance of the moon from the earth is 9.5 times the circumference of the earth, the children set about multiplying. They then measured that distance using a trundle wheel to display where the balloon or moon would be in relation to the earth in space.
