14-02-2016 #1
Bray School Project N.S.
th
On Tuesday 9 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
Casper telling Tobi about the
classroom was empty! When we fed our fish on Wednesday
food
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
th
It was a great day on the 8 of 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 is fantastic 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.
th
th
Hello we are 5 and 6 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.
th
On Wednesday 10 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:
Prawn 1 (SpongeBob):
1. Is long and skinny and he moves
about a lot
2. He can float in the water and is see
through
Prawn 2 (Fwed):
1. Is short and has darker black lines going along
his back
2. He can float in the water and also is also see
through. He is slower than SpongeBob
Flounder (Giuseppe):
1. Giuseppe is the same colour as the sand
2. He spends most of his time buried under
the ground
3. When he comes up, he swims along the sand
Starfish (Sparky):
1. Our starfish is only a baby so we
cannot touch him
2. The starfish moves a lot but stays in
the same place for short periods of time
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 Spongebob Squarepants 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 changing
from 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.