Science Super Learning Day 

In Nursery, the children were challenged to investigate materials with similar and different properties, exploring what happened as they were combined. Hands-on exploration of flour and water, mixing the materials together to create gloop, resulted in lots of words being used to describe what they could see and feel.  Sculpting snow on a small and large scale created awe and wonder at how well the snow could be built onto to create something quite large.  Mixing paint with water at varying levels through the use of pump dispensers encouraged independence and exploration of varying amounts of paint to water and vice versa. 

Today, children in Reception joined in with a whole school ‘Science Super Learning Day’. The children were challenged to use key vocabulary to explain what they saw as they observed what happened when kitchen roll was placed into coloured water. One child said, “The kitchen roll has changed colour. It’s going up and over.” Another child commented, “You putted the paper in all of the bottles. The colourful ones made the water go into the empty ones." 

In Year 1, we have been learning about materials. We thought about how coats were made and how we can use this to create an umbrella for our friend Ted.  We spent time learning about what a fair test means. First, we were given different materials and asked to think about how we could test them. We came up with ideas such as running them under a tap or leaving them outside in the rain.  We started to think about how we could control the amount of water and decided to use a pipette and put 10 drops on each material. This helped us to make it a fair test. We found that some materials were not waterproof at all such as paper and cardboard. We found that metal and plastic were both waterproof. We decided the best material for the umbrella was plastic, because it was waterproof but also flexible. 

In Year 2, we started the day with the question ‘who is Charles Macintosh?’ We discovered that he was a scientist who created waterproof clothing material and we can still buy the mac now! Throughout the day, we carried out 2 different investigations. We started with the question ‘would a paper boat float forever?’ and we observed this over the morning. We found the design impacted the results, but due to the absorbency of the material it would not float forever. In the afternoon, we then carried out another investigation with the question ‘what is the best materials to create a ramp for a toy car?’ for our fair test. We thought carefully about our predictions and then worked in groups to test out our ideas. We finished off with having a go at adding our data to a bar graph

In Year 3, we looked at the scientific skills of pattern seeking and observing over time. We used red food colouring to colour water and measure how much liquid was absorbed by the celery sticks over 24 hours. We ensured it was a fair test as the only variable we changed was the size of the celery.

Today, Year 4 have been investigating the sound levels in school. We focused on using a data logging app called Arduino and we recorded the sound intensity in decibels. We then used the information collected to create a bar chart and evaluate the results to find out which classroom was the loudest and why this might be the case. 

Year 5 enjoyed learning about how craters are made as part of their science topic this term. They planned a fair test to find out how different objects (the ‘meteorites’) affected the length of the crater.

In Year 6, children recapped on their learning about Light from Year 3 and then focussed on investigating, ‘How does the distance of a light source affect the shape of a shadow?’ The children completed a planning board where they focussed on fair testing by only changing one variable and thinking about variables, which needed to be kept the same. In groups, the children discussed the distances the object would need to be from the light source and recorded some ideas in their prediction table. The children collaborated in groups and enjoyed carrying out their investigations which they adapted throughout. Data gathered was then shown as a  line graph and children composed conclusions focussing on clear concise explanations and referring to their predictions.

British Science Week

Throughout the school, we have been celebrating British Science Week through a whole school investigation, a competition and sharing a ‘Big Question’ with the children on a daily basis.

For the whole school investigation, the question for the week was: Will my gummy bear grow? The children have enjoyed putting the gummy bears in different liquids and observing what has happened over time. They have used their results to check against their predictions, classify the gummy bears and even input data onto a spreadsheet and from this produce a line graph.

In another whole school project, both children and staff have shown a real interest in thinking about how they can make their sunflower grow the tallest for the whole school competition. The sunflowers have already been watered regularly and some have been taken out at playtime to bathe in the sun! The winning class will be announced in Summer Term.

It has been wonderful to listen to the children talking ‘Science’ throughout the school.