1st Class Blog From little acorns mighty oaks grow 

This month, First Class has been busy learning everything there is to know about penguins. Here is what we have been up to:

Amazing Penguin Facts

We learned so much! We discovered what penguins eat, why they are black and white, and how they are expert swimmers who adapt to the freezing climate. We also explored different species, finding out about the largest (the Emperor Penguin) and the smallest (the Little Blue Penguin).

Where do they live?

We explored the Antarctic and learned about the freezing cold habitat where many penguins live.

STEM Challenge: Cotton Bud Igloos

We put our engineering skills to the test! Using just cotton buds and glue, we had to design and build our very own igloo structures.

Art: Clay Models

In Art, we got creative with clay. We molded and painted our own unique penguin sculptures to bring our winter theme to life.

Writing: Penguin Reports

To finish our topic, we became reporters. We wrote fact files using all the new information we learned about penguins.

It has been a fantastic month of learning!

We Learned About Night Flyers!

We became Bat Scientists! Did you know that bats are the only mammals that can truly fly? They are like little night-time superheroes!

Here are two amazing things we learned about real bats:

1. Bat Hands are Wings! A bat’s wing is like a giant, stretchy hand with four long fingers. This big, stretchy wing helps them zoom and swoop in the dark.

2. Bats Hear to “See”: Bats use special sounds to “see” when it’s dark. It’s called Echolocation. They make a tiny chirp, and if the sound bounces back quickly, they know something is close!

Our Challenge: Making Paper Bats Fly!

After learning about those amazing wings, we took the Paper Bat Challenge!

Our goal was to make a paper bat that could fly the furthest across the room. We learned that being a scientist means trying, failing, and trying again!

1. How We Built Them

We made sure our bats had big, wide wings just like the real ones. We folded and taped the paper until our bats were ready to fly!

2. The Big Test!

We took turns launching our bats across the room! We saw some fly far, some flutter high, and some crash. Every time a bat didn’t fly well, we changed the folds or the shape of the paper to make it better.

We were all amazing engineers and scientists. We are all looking forward to finding another amazing animal to study next time!

We had a fantastic Halloween celebration! Our class spent the day having a fun wacky charity walk, and spooky Halloween games. Thank you to everyone for making it such a memorable success! 

The Annual Walk: Our Mad Hair Day!

We started the day with a big community event: the Mad Hair Day Walk! We styled our wildest, craziest hairstyles and joined the fun stroll through Edenmore Park. The wacky hair was fantastic and brought so many smiles! This walk raised money for the great Oscar Kids charity. Thanks to everyone’s incredible effort collecting sponsors! All that playing and walking was hard work! We finished the walk with a big dancing party, thanks to our wonderful PTA. They provided all the yummy post-walk treats too, including tasty biscuits! 

Spooky Games in Class

We kicked off the afternoon by turning our classroom into a game zone, and we had lots of laughs with these favourites:

• Blindfolded Fun: We played Pin the Nose on the Witch and Pin the Eyes on the Ghost. It was so funny watching everyone try to get them in the right place!

• Spider Toss: The Throwing Spiders on a Web game let us practice our aim—we were great at sticking them on the web!

• The Messy Main Event: Floury Grape! This was the silliest game! We had the messiest fun finding a coin hidden in the flour. Lots of floury smiles after that one!

Our class recently wrapped up an exciting and engaging unit all about trees! We combined creativity, hands-on engineering, and scientific exploration to discover just how amazing these plants are. We kicked off our journey by learning why trees are so vital to our world, setting the stage for some truly memorable activities.

1. Why Trees Matter

We began by learning the vital role trees play in our environment. The class were very excited to discover that trees clean our air and provide essential homes for animals. This part of the lesson truly sparked their curiosity about nature.

2. Creative Tree Art

Next, the class got creative! Using paper plates and colorful tissue paper, the children designed unique, textured tree canopies. These beautiful, handcrafted trees now brighten our school corridor!

3. The Balancing Challenge

The lesson shifted to a hands-on STEM challenge. Working in pairs, students used wooden sticks and Play-Doh to build a tall tree that had to balance paper leaves. This required teamwork and critical thinking about weight and stability.

4. Nature Walk and Leaf Identification

Finally, we became field scientists outside. The children collected different leaves and used a simple identification key to name the types of trees. This exercise sharpened their observation skills and connected their learning to the real world.

We are so impressed with the focus and enthusiasm the class showed throughout this project. They truly blossomed, growing their knowledge from the roots up!

Every single name has a special story. We all have one! In our class, we did a project to learn about our names and what makes each of us unique.

First, we became name detectives! We found out that some of our names are from a grandparent or an aunt, and some names mean things like “brave” or “happy.” It was fun to hear everyone’s stories and learn new things about our friends.

After that, we got to be artists! We drew a big tree on a wall. Then, we each painted our own name right onto the mural. We also made handprints that look like bright, on the tree’s branches. Each handprint shows something we love to do and helps tell the story of who we are. We put all our decorated names on the big tree to make it a special class tree.

Now, our class tree is a beautiful mural that shows who we are. It shows that we are all part of the same class, but we each have our own special hobbies and favourite things. It’s a great way to remember that everyone in our class is unique and important.

First class had a wonderful time exploring the school grounds last week, starting with a special visit to our class tree. We became nature detectives, using foot spans and strides to find the distance between our tree and different parts of the yard. Everyone made a fantastic effort with their measurements, even though it was a bit tricky!

The class also put their artistic skills to the test by sketching the tree and its leaves. We made some great guesses about how many leaves were on the branches, which was a fun challenge.

After our tree adventure, we looked at the work of Wassily Kandinsky. The vibrant colours and bold lines we saw on our walk inspired us to create our own Kandinsky-style tree paintings, focusing on bright colours and strong contrasts. It was amazing to see how everyone interpreted the world around them through their art. A great learning experience for everyone involved!