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Science

Science Information

Our enquiry based curriculum and hands on experiences children are able to build an understanding of the world around them. Through posing questions and expanding and learning key vocabulary we can share our ideas, make predictions and draw conclusions across a range of topics. Have a look at some of the work we have been completing:

Nursery

In Nursery, we have been learning all about Winter. As part of our Knowledge and Understanding we have been Scientists. We have been exploring how we can make frost using water, ice and salt. The children then practised their mark making using their fingers!

Reception

During Spring Term, Reception have been on an incredible 'journey through the galaxy'. We have launched foam rockets to investigate which would travel the furthest and applied this to our own paper rockets which we had lots of fun making! Also, we recreated the stars and planets in our classroom.

Year 1

During Spring term Year 1 have been learning all about plants. They have named the parts of a plant and have used their growing knowledge of plants to label the plants functions. Also, Year 1 have explored the school and gone on a plant hunt to find and identify lots of different plants!

Year 2

During Spring term, Year 2 have been exploring uses of everyday materials. They had great fun identifying and classifying the materials based on their properties and using their knowledge of every materials to investigate the most appropriate materials to design and make their own superhero capes. After testing their superhero capes they explained and evaluated their choice of materials.

Year 3

We investigated and classified different types of rocks in Science. We had a list of criteria we assessed against including - lustre, hardness, colour, crystals or no crystals to name some. We then split them into 2 different groups depending on how we had chosen to classify them. It was really interesting seeing all the different types of rocks and inspecting them!

In Science we have been investigating rocks. We looked at lots of different types and examined them with a hand lens. We asked questions and began to look at ways to answer them. We sorted and classified our rocks by their appearance too!

In Science, we have been learning about healthy diets. We have been looking at all the different nutrients, which foods they can be found in and why our body needs them. We played a matching game to consolidate our learning.

For our plants experiment we decided to investigate:

1. Does the amount of water effect a plants growth?

2. Do plants need sunlight to grow?

3. Do plants need soil to grow?

To investigate the first question we planted some seeds in a cup with soil. We gave one plant no water, one 10ml of water, one 20ml of water and the last cup 30ml of water.

For the second experiment we planted seeds in cups, watered them and placed one on the windowsill in sunlight and one in a box in the cupboard.

For the final question we planted seeds in soil, in an empty cup and in a cup with tissue.

We will measure the plants every 2 days to see how they grow and record them in a results table to analyse at the end of the experiment.

Our first Science topic is plants. We are planning on doing an experiment and initially needed to raise some questions to help us figure out what to investigate and what we would like to find out about plants. We used the stem question cards to help us think of different question starts. Some of the questions we came up with were:

Dean: How do plants grow?

Viv: Do big seeds grow into big plants?

Harry S: Could seeds grow in sand?

Harry W: What would happen if you planted a lot of seeds in the same place?

We have been learning about what seeds need to grow. We think that they need sunlight, soil and water. We set up 3 investigations to test this out. We also planted some other seeds to answer some of the other questions we had about how seeds grow into plants. We know that we need to keep our investigations fair and this means only changing one thing. We carefully set up our investigations and have been watching and waiting for our plants to grow. The children were very shocked and intrigued by the results. Even the seeds that we didn't water grew! The children were able to ask further questions and have a theory; why not ask them?

Our new topic in Science is Rocks and Soils. We started off the topic by using the stem question cards to come up with some questions about rocks. Here are some ideas we had:

Izzi: Why are some rocks smooth and some rough?

Ben: What types of rocks are there?

Thomas & Harriett: Are some rocks rarer than others?

Harvey & Adam: How are rocks made?

We then looked at a range of different rocks and investigated the ways in which we could classify them. We found out how to carry out a streak test, the meaning of lustre and how to check if rocks had it or not, whether rocks had crystals and whether they were hard or soft rocks. In our groups we then decided how to classify our rocks.

Our new topic in Science is Rocks and Soils. We started off the topic by using the stem question cards to come up with some questions about rocks. Here are some ideas we had:

Izzi: Why are some rocks smooth and some rough?

Ben: What types of rocks are there?

Thomas & Harriett: Are some rocks rarer than others?

Harvey & Adam: How are rocks made?

In Year 3, our first science topic was plants. We set up an experiment looking at the different conditions plants needed to grow. One group looked at the amount of light plants needed, putting seeds in pots on windowsills, in cupboards and on worktops away from light. Another group looked at the amount of water that is best for a plant to grow - giving seeds 0 - 40ml of water. The last experiment was whether plants needed soil to grow, planting seeds in soil, cotton wool and empty pots. We recorded our results in a table and then presented our results in a practical graph that we made using masking tape.

We used our questions cards to help us create some questions for our plant experiment. These are some of the questions we came up with:

Would a seed grow if we planted it in stones? Megan

What if we gave the plant no water? Maisey

If we hid the seed away in the cupboard would it still grow? Isobelle

From these questions we created a range of experiments changing the essential things a plant needs to grow.

In science we have begun to explore plants- we talked about plants we know about and went exploring the school grounds. We examined small areas very closely and found that in a small area there can be a wide variety of plants growing. We found that some of the trees on our grounds have really big roots that are showing through the ground. Some areas of the field seem bare and we discussed why this might be:

Micah- I think this is because the roots from the tree are soaking up lots of the water so the ground is too dry for other plants to grow.

Caitlin- It might be because people walk on that part lots.

We carried out an experiment to look at how far a ‘rocket mouse’ travelled on different surfaces. We used old milk bottles and cardboard mice to carry out the test. We worked in groups of 4 and each member of the group had a different role. To make the mouse move from the bottle we decided to stamp on it. The different surfaces we tested were the wet area in the classroom, the carpet, pavement and the hall floor.

We came up with some questions before we carried out the experiment:

Will the mouse go further if you stamp or squeeze the bottle? Chloe

Where is the best place to position the cone? Meredith

What will we use to measure the distance? Connor

We explored light and shadows using torches, mirrors and other objects in the class room.

We noticed that if we shone the light on a mirror, the light changed direction.

We blocked the light with objects and made shadows.

We asked questions about light and shadows...

Can we still get a shadow if light changes colour?

How can we see in the dark?

How does our shadow move position at different times of the day if the object stays in the same place?

What makes a good shadow?

Why does your shadow follow you?

In science we have been measuring different parts of our bodies, we then looked for any patterns and compared our measurements with the rest of our group. We have been learning about length in Maths so we used these skills when measuring. We tried converting our height from centimetres into metres and centimetres.

In autumn term, year three were learning about rocks and soils.

Lucas Robinson was able to explain the rock cycle.
Look out for his use of scientific vocabulary.

A rock on the Earth's surface becomes weathered and eroded which forms sediment. next it gets picked up by a river and goes to the sea and sinks to the sea bed.

Then (after many years), lots of sediment covers the rock. It gets warm and turns into a metamorphic rock. More pressure and sediment is added to the rock and forms magma. In a volcanic eruption, it becomes laa and very quickly cools down so it turns into an extrusive igneous rock.

We carried out an investigation into different types of rocks and looked at their properties. We tested their hardness and carried out the streak test. There were lots of different rocks that we hadn’t seen before!

Year three have also started learning about skeletons in their topic ‘Animals Including Humans’.
They used their Mathematics skills to record measurements of their body parts, such as their arm span and their foot size and then looked for relationships between them.

Afterwards, they used question stems to generate their own questions about their results and their topic:

Are there some relationships between measurements?

Have we got any measurements the same?

Why is my arm span the same as my height?

Are your friends different measures?

What if our measurements were wrong?

Why did we have different measurements for both feet?

If we do it in a few weeks, will our measurements be different?

Year 4

In Science, we have been exploring what different drinks do to our teeth over time. The children all chose a drink and observed a hard boiled egg in the liquid for 4 days. Then they took it out of the liquid and explored what the drink had done to the egg. Some of the egg shells became softer and thinner. When the children took the shell off the egg they found that the liquid had seeped through the shell and stained the actual egg.

In year four, we have been learning about electricity. Using our skills from year two and working together as a team, we found the equipment we needed and created a complete circuit!

We have also been learning about sound. We carried out an investigation into how sound travels: we explored how vibrations from a spoon hitting the table would travel through a piece of string to our ears and create a sound.

Year 5

Year five have started learning about forces. To begin their topic, they explored ‘flying fish’ to think about the effects of gravity and air resistance.

After carrying out investigations, they have presenting their findings in practical tables, which then allowed the children to interpret the data into graphs and look for patterns in the results.

Year 6

Year six have been learning about electricity. They visited the power station, where they were able to ask lots of questions about the generation of electricity and the fuel sources used. During the visit the children presented their findings to the rest of the group.

When they returned to school, the children produced reports on what they had learned.

They also used their knowledge of circuits from year four to explain how electricity flows around a circuit and to investigate how the brightness of a bulb can be affected by the number of components in a circuit.

Look at what we got up to last year...

In Science, year 5 have been exploring day and night. They used globes and torches to recreate the suns rays and how they shine on the Earth.

Year 4 have enjoyed taking part in Science Week this term. They loved learning about how electricity is made and how it travels to our homes.

Lennon’s explained how electricity is made and how it travels to our homes:

First, people heat things (fuels) and the heat makes the water get hot. After that, the water turns into steam which pushes turbines with a big magnet in them. The magnet makes electricity then it goes into a transformer to change the volts. Then it travels through the pylons to our home.

They sorted out which items needed or didn’t need electrical energy. They also decided which items needed battery power or electricity from a socket. They used Venn diagrams to show our findings scientifically.

Lilly found that a radio could be sorted into both socket or battery powered category. It went in the middle section of her Venn diagram.
Lewis knew that items such as a tree or table didn’t use electrical energy.

They were able to make a simple circuit including a cell, bulb, switch and wire. They had retained this information from KS1. They learnt how to use symbols to represent the components of the circuit and then drew a circuit diagram. They investigated what happens when they add extra bulbs or wire.

Jack wrote: When we add more wires the bulb gets dimmer because the electricity has more wires to get through. It can’t get through because the wire tries to stop it.

They were given a scenario from which they created an investigation question. They needed to find which materials were the best at conducting electricity in order to use it to rewire the school electrics. The children designed an investigation considering variables and fair testing, agreed on a method and made a prediction as to what they thought would happen.

Orange table found that wool was a conductor of electricity but all of the other tables disagreed. The rest of the class found this was a false result due to the circuit not being connected properly. This was discussed in their evaluation. They found metal to be the best conductor.

After they had completed an evaluation of their investigation, they made some recommendations to be considered if the investigation was to be repeated.

Lilly, Hollie, Ben and Lennon really enjoyed presenting our investigation and findings to the rest of the school at the Science fayre.

Year 2 investigated different materials and how this would alter how far a car would travel. We used our maths knowledge to measure in CM. We were able to explain the properties of different materials.

Year 6 went to the power station to learn a little more about electricity. Lucy and Kalan even won a competition sharing how much they had learned about electricity.

Year 2 have had an amazing time learning all about living things.

They have worked hard to classify a selection of animals into carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.

Year 3 have been exploring volcanic eruptions. It was incredibly interesting watching the model erupt but the mix of coca cola ad vinegar let off a terrible smell.

Year 2 went on a minibeast walk and found lots of micro-habitats. We also found a woodlouse and even a lizard.

Suzie has been exploring changes at home.

Paige and I were mixing materials at home. We experimented with three different bags of materials. The first bag was salad cream and gravy granules which was an irreversible change. Irreversible means that you can't separate the materials from each other. The second one we did was milk and orange juice which was irreversible. The final one we did was grass and water which was reversible. Reversible means that you can separate the two materials. We had lots of fun!

Year 1 have been learning all about seasons in their Science lessons. The first season they have been learning about is Autumn and how the leaves on some trees change. The children had lots of fun when they went hunting for fallen leaves around school.

Jasmine and Jasmine took part in the Science Fair! They had such an amazing time.

It was so fun for us and we taught people more about parachutes. I think our stall was successful and we wanted to thank everyone who visited us and came to the Science Fair. We had lots of good reviews!

The Jasmines.

Science

Science Week

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