What is an engineer?
Engineers bring dreams to life! Engineers are from  diverse backgrounds and they take ideas and turn them into reality, using science, maths and imagination. Engineers are masters of problem-solving and creative design. For an overview of what engineers do, check out the engineering discipline posters below. Visit steps.ie for more    information about engineering.

Today we were lucky enough to have Ciara Judge visit 4th class to speak to us as part of our Science and Engineering week in school. Ciara is a young scientist from Kinsale who won the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2013. She also won a First place Award in the European Union Contest for Young Scientists 2013. In 2014, she jointly with her 2 friends won the grand prize in Google Science Fair.  Ciara was also listed as one of the 25 most influential teens in Time for the year 2014 as a result of her innovation. The class were absolutely enthralled during her inspiring talk as you can see from their faces in the video. Thanks to Cormac for capturing it all on camera.

How to use your  book token
Thanks to National Book Tokens and lots of lovely book publishers and booksellers, World Book Day, in partnership with schools all over the country, will be distributing more than 15 million World Book Day book tokens to children (that’s almost one for every child/young person under 18 in the UK and Ireland).

When you get your book token, all you need to do is to take it to your local bookseller (there’s lots of them out there – find your local participating bookshop here and swap it for one of the TEN (exclusive, new and completely free) World Book Day books!
Or, if you’d prefer, you can use your book token to get €1.50 off any full price book instead!  And if you’d rather get an audio book, that’s fine too! It’s your choice, just as long as the book or audio book costs at least €3.99.

Then all YOU have to do is take your book home and enjoy it.
The World Book Day book tokens are valid from Monday 27 February–Sunday 26 March 2017.

Here's a little sneak preview of the Aladdin programme. The show will be on the 15th and 16th of February. Make sure you pick up your tickets soon as they are selling fast!

 
History Project Specification
The brief: homework project to design a medieval castle. This can either be in a poster format or if you prefer you can create a model of a medieval castle. You must consider the following:

• The reasons why castles were built during the middle ages
• The structure of castles at the time
• The style of their castle, motte and baily, stone keep, concentric etc
• Location, location, location: where is your castle located and why?
• Offense or defense? What are the defensive/ offensive features of  your castle?

You can complete this project individually or as part of a group. The due date for this project is the 17th February giving you almost three weeks to complete the project. It is so important that children have the experience of taking the responsibility to follow through with a project over a period of time..  
Ideas for Castle Construction:
If you are choosing to build a model, try not to make your model too large as we have limited space to display them. The model can be quite simple using cardboard cereal boxes, toilet rolls etc. Here are some links to help you with the construction of a model castle.

Build a Medieval Castle

How to Build Castles for School Projects

How to Build Model Castles

Wiki-How:  How to Build a Model Castle

Make a Paper and Cardboard Medieval Castle
 
 

 A massive congratulations to all the children on a very successful science fair! Here are some pictures of the children and their exhibitions. I am so proud of all the children's efforts and want to thank the parents for their continued support in the lead up to the big day. I'm already looking forward to next year!