This term, Herons Year 5/6 have been investigating different materials and their properties. Here, the children are devising their own investigation into the hardness of different materials. As part of this line of scientific enquiry, Herons discussed and wrote down how to conduct a fair test, what the variables and constants would be and how they could both show and explain/interpret their results in their written work. Can you spot all of the materials used?
Science
Science – Investigating Melting Points
Grebes have loved investigating melting points this week, heating various substances and recording the temperature at which each began to melt. Cheese, butter, dark/white/milk chocolate, gummy bears – we melted it all. Children were able to reflect on the results of the investigation and why the first attempt was not a scientifically rigorous fair test – for example, some groups had the heat source further away from the substances being melted, and some had the thermometer in different positions. They have worked together to plan a repeat experiment with variables under strict control.
Kingfisher Shadows
Kingfishers have been exploring how shadows are made. They created their own investigations in order to discover what materials will and won’t create a shadow, where the source of light needs to be and how to change the shadow – making it larger and smaller.
Planting Mysterious Beans
Bitterns have started off their Science topic of plants by planting some mysterious beans that we received. Most of the children suspect the beans have been sent from Jack (Jack and the Beanstalk has been our Literacy topic). As a class we learnt about what a plant needs to grow and we used this understanding to help us to plant our magic beans. We will be observing and recording their growth over the coming weeks.Â
Science Day
This years science day focus was Animals. The Bitterns learnt about different groups of animals, habitats and what animals need to stay healthy. They started the day by looking at a range of animals and categorising them into groups. After this we learnt what a habitat is and explored some different types of habitats. We embarked on a minibeast hunt, exploring habitats within our school grounds. To finish the day we joined together with the KS2 children to undertake a fun science experiment.
Science (Year 1)
In science the Bitterns have continued to learn about materials and their properties. This week we focused our learning on waterproof materials. The children were trying to answer the question ‘Which would be the most suitable material to make an umbrella with.’ The children discussed how they could test the materials and ensure that all the tests were fair. We then work scientifically to record which materials were waterproof.
Science – Levers and Pulleys
During the Spring term, we have investigated levers and pulleys in the classroom and during forest school:
