Materials Investigation: - STEP 1 (materials) and STEP 4 Maths

Investigating Coats.

In Junior Infants we decided that we would do some investigations regarding our coats.
Our teacher brought in a bag different kinds of material, cotton, nylon, acrylic, wool, fur etc.
We closed our eyes and felt the different kinds of materials. We described whether they were hard or soft, smooth or rough, shiny or dull, fluffy or furry. We all took turn to choose the material we thought our coats were made of.
Most of us predicted that our coats would be made of waterproof material and they were.

We discussed the following questions.

• What are our coats made from? 
• Where do you think the material might come from? 
• What sort of coats do animals and birds have? (Fur, feathers). 
• What colours are the coats of some animals (e.g. leopards, polar bears, zebras, giraffes) We talked about camouflage and how some animals are very clever at camouflaging themselves. 
• Would humans want to be ‘invisible’, wearing dark coats when out walking at night? We talked about reflective bands on coats and teacher gave us all a high-vis jacket

MATHS
The next day we discussed how we could sort our school anoraks/coats? (colour, material, long/short, with buttons or zips, with/without hoods, with/without pockets, with/without reflective armbands, etc)

We discovered that 16 people had coats with zips and only 1 person had a coat with buttons.

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