Month: November 2015

Sight and Hearing Tests

HSE  completed sight and hearing test on Junior and Senior Infants this week

If there are any problems with sight you will be contacted by them and  referred to the eye clinic. (there is a long waiting list )

If there is any problem with hearing these children will be retested at school  in six weeks. Children who were absent  or who had no forms signed can be redone at this time.

Some of the Junior Infant Classes were not done at all and the nurse will return after Christmas to do these children.

Sam Maguire to visit Saint Brigid’s

Tomorrow morning , just after school starts we hope to welcome the Sam Maguire Cup to our school accompanied by one or two Dublin players.  Children are allowed to wear their school tracksuits .  It is too cold for  Dublin jerseys but if your child owns one, they can wear it  over their  school tracksuit tops.  ( might be an idea to write names on the inside labels) . Classes will be called to the hall when the cup arrives.

IMG_2493

6th Class Experiments

6th class conducted three experiments:

Bernouli’s Principle...How planes fly using a ping pong ball and a balloon

Bernoulli’s principle helps explain that an aircraft can achieve lift because of the shape of its wings. They are shaped so that that air flows faster over the top of the wing and slower underneath. Fast moving air equals low air pressure while slow moving air equals high air pressure. The high air pressure underneath the wings will therefore push the aircraft up through the lower air pressure.

Centripetal Force  using a coin inside a balloon

The shape of the balloon makes the penny move in a circular path – otherwise the penny would want to continue to move in a straight line. Another force to consider is friction. There’s very little friction between the edge of the penny and the balloon. More friction would cause the penny to slow down and stop.

The real force in action here is called centripetal force, which means center-seeking. This is a force that is always directed toward the center of the circle and is actually responsible for keeping the penny moving in a circular motion inside the balloon.

 Static Electricity , using hair and balloons

Rubbing the balloons against the woolen fabric or your hair creates static electricity. This involves negatively charged particles (electrons) jumping to positively charged objects. When you rub the balloons against your hair or the fabric they become negatively charged, they have taken some of the electrons from the hair/fabric and left them positively charged.

 

[AFG_gallery id=’32’]

 

Science Week in Ist Class

1st Class went outside to demonstrate the exploding diet coke and mentos sweet experiment. It was like an oil geysher . How does it happen?

The Mentos serves as a little factory and launchpad for bubbles—supercharging the normal bubble-formation process in the Coke. The mint’s rough surface has thousands of tiny pores,  ideal  for lots of bubbles to form. As the bubbles grow they  float up to the top of the Coke. The process keeps chugging along, creating more and more bubbles until it explodes out the top of the bottle in a foamy overflow.

[AFG_gallery id=’31’]

Science Week in 5th Class

 

5th  Class demonstrated closed circuit electrical experiments  using batteries, wire and bulbs . They also had a potato powered calculator. Robert explained it was to do with the chemical reactions inside the potato could be diverted to a calculator by adding copper and metal. We also saw battery operated spinning fans and rainbow coloured discs that produced a white colour when spinning. Eve used her c programming skills to program a chip which allowed her to make a small “robot” move.  James had an experiment to show liquids of different densities don’t  automatically mix . Hugh had a gravity and water experiment . Andrew showed dissolving gummy bears and bicycle gears and Luke crated a very impressive doodle bot.  Well done to all.

 

[AFG_gallery id=’29’]