Bray School Project N.S.
On Tuesday 9th February Eimear and Pat from Sea Life installed a tank in our classroom. We got a flounder which we named Zerkaa, a ghost prawn called Casper and a star fish called Tobi. Eimear and Pat said that Tobi the star fish be the most active but we’ve observed that actually Casper the ghost prawn is the most active! Zerkaa the flounder normally hides in the sand, so all we can see of him is his eye and part of his back, although some children from our class were looking through the window during break time and they saw Zerkaa swimming around the tank while the classroom was empty!When we fed our fish on Wednesday morning Casper the ghost prawn went straight to Tobi the star fish as if he was telling him that there was food for him. Then Casper picked up loads of food, but only ate one pellet!5th class got a big fright on Thursday! Tobi the star fish was on the thermometer and he wasn’t moving like he was before and part of him was out of the water, so we thought he was dead. Suzanne phoned Eimear and she explained that a star fish can survive with only one leg in the water and Tobi had probably just found a comfortable place so he didn’t want to leave. We were all very relieved and delighted when we came in this morning to see that Tobi had moved overnight and was very much alive and well! We’re really enjoying taking turns sitting at the tank and observing and recording the sea creature’s behaviour.
Dominican Convent Primary School
It was a great day on the 8thof February. Only a few weeks after our amazing trip to Sealife in Bray, our fish arrived. It was an exciting moment when the two staff from Sealife came to our classroom and gave us the equipment for the tank. For our tank we were given a filter, a chiller, a cleaning magnet, a net and fish food. We all have different jobs in the class. Maisie and Mark check the temperature, Caoimhe and Cian feed the fish, Mathew and Savannah are in charge of the light and Rafael cleans the glass. We named our fish. The starfish is called Patrick-Patricia. Our flatfish is called Tony and our prawn is called Issa - Gregory. (because we don’t know whether they are boys or girls).During the week some exciting things happened. The prawn has tried to escape but has never succeeded. At one stage we thought the starfish had died. Patrick -Patricia clung to the filter and was floating upon the water. We think Issa – Gregory is afraid of Tony. Issa - Gregory is always swimming away from Tony. Tony is starting to come out of his comfort zone.Issa-Gregory had a dance off with Tony, Tony won. We have a diary where we write information about what happens in the tank.It has been an amazing experience so far and it isfantastic to have an aquarium in our classroom.
Glenageary Killiney N.S.
Hello everybody! We have had an exciting first week with our Starfish, Peaches, Flat fish, Norman and Prawn, Desmond! They have really begun to settle in and we’re getting to know their wonderful ways!We have an aqua-rota which helps us to ensure that every job gets done. We’re going to make sure that everyone gets to do a few jobs over the course of the month. We also have a rota for recording the temperature of the tank, inside and outside although we haven’t been as vigilant as we should have been this week!We started doing research for our group projects which will begin after half term. We already know quite a bit after a fascinating visit to Sealife! Here’s some art we’ve done!
Holy Family N.S.
Hello we are 5th and 6th class from Holy Family N.S in Monkstown.We are excited to share our information with you about our sea life.We have received three fish, a flatfish a shrimp and a starfish.We named our fish. The flat fish is called Flatser. The shrimp is called Shrimpster. The starfish is called Paddy. We got our fish on Monday 9th of February. The bully of the tank is the shrimp he runs straight for the food before anyone can get to it.The starfish just floats at the top of the tank and has not been very active. The flatfish buries himself underneath the sand. Hopefully they interact more next week. Two people have been recording and observing the tank on a daily basis. They are in particular looking out for temperature changes and any patterns the fish might display. One such example is of Shrimpster trying to get a piggy back off Flatser. Flatser needless to say is not impressed.
Talk to you all next week.
St. Annes N.S.
The names we chose for our sea creatures are Luke Starwalker for the starfish, Qui-Gon Fin for the flatfish and Obi-Wan Prawnobi for the prawn. You might have noticed that these three names play on words from the movie franchise Star Wars. We chose Star Wars names because the new movie is out and everybody is talking about it. Another reason why we chose Star Wars names was because they went well with the sea creatures. Some of the other suggestions were Blue, Toby, Starth Vader, Star Star Binks, Flash, Rocky and LePrawn James (after the basketball player). Luke Starwalker is really active and likes to move around the tank. Qui-Gon Fin hides in the sand and leaving only his eyes poking out. He is so shy. Obi-Wan Prawnobi likes to hang out by the filter and minds his own business. We are all very happy with the creatures we have and we’re looking forward to getting to know them better!
St. Pius X G.N.S.
Keeping up with the K’s! - We welcomed our new classmates on the 10/2/16, Kourtney the flounder, Khloe the starfish and Kasper the ghost prawn. As soon as Kourtney was let out of the bag she quickly buried herself in the sand because maybe she was feeling a little insecure of her physique in front of her new companions! Khloe loves to show everybody her moves as she’s always doing handstands against the corner of the tank. Kasper is very vain, greedy and loves checking himself out in the glass. Khloe is like the hawk of the tank, because she knows what’s going on 24/7. Kourtney enjoys peeking out the window and we find her eyes very interesting and beautiful! (see our photo). We think there’s tension between Kourtney and Kasper. Kasper is so energetic in the tank and Kourtney probably finds him really irritating. When it was feeding time Kasper was VERY greedy and ate all around him. Khloe casually crawled over to the food and eventually ate some. We still don’t know if Kourtney ate anything.We are so looking forward to all the adventures and excitement in the K household over the next three weeks!
St. Mary’s & St. Gerard’s N.S.
On Wednesday 10th February, Pat and Emma from Sea-Life in Bray arrived at the school with our fish tank. They explained how the air pump, chiller, filter and vacuum worked before they released our four sea creatures into the tank. We received two prawns, a flounder and a starfish. We spent Wednesday and Thursday getting to know them, naming them and agreeing on who will do what job. Our water temperature is about 13C in the morning but goes up to 16C during the day. Here is what we have noticed about our four sea creatures so far:
Today (Friday), we visited Sealife and had a great day. When we returned to school, we fed our sea creatures for the first time. We have a week off next week so Ena and our teacher will mind them for us.
Moneystown N.S.
In our tank we have two ghost prawns, one flatfish and one starfish. We named our ghost prawns ‘DJ PJ’ and ‘Lightning’. We chose these names because Lightning moves very quickly and DJ PJ looks like he is scratching a record when he eats. We decided to call our flatfish ‘Pancake’ because he resembles a pancake and he arrived on Pancake Tuesday. We called our starfish ‘Patrick’. We chose this name as the starfish in SpongebobSquarepants is named Patrick. However, Patrick has changed colour in the last few days and Eimear in Sealife gave us an interesting fact. She said that if marine animals change colour they may in fact be changingfrom a male to a female or vice versa. Now, we’re unsure as to whether to call the starfish Patrick or Patricia!
Some of the other classes have been talking about marine animals this week too and created an ‘Under the Sea’ display board for art.