We have been very fortunate in my school to have a number of workshops with Michelle Maher of Scien-tastic. Michelle is based in Wexford and travels to schools in neighbouring counties.
Michelle offers a variety of workshops with different classes from exploring slime and polymers to constructing a C.S.I. investigation.
In my own class I have participated in the polymers workshop and the children had so much fun exploring colours initially to making polymers and slime. The children were so engaged throughout the workshop and really enjoyed the hands on activities too. Further information about the workshops Michelle offers can be found on her facebook page.
Michelle also has classroom kits for various experiments such as slime, electricity and a general primary science kit which we have in my own school. All kits come with suggested lessons plans that link with our curriculum and are very reasonably priced too.
I love using the primary science kit with the infants as they feel they are real scientists using the equipment. In other classes you can introduce the language such as graduated cylinder and funnel to them. Equipment like this will be used in Science in secondary school also.
Overall, I highly recommend Scien-tastic, it gives the children the chance to work as scientists and introduce topics that you might not be comfortable with yourself. Or if you’re like me you just want to part of it all and end up working with the kids and learning things for yourself.
A.M.
Aistear Múinteoir 