Science Blog

Teaching Science in the lockdown has been both interesting and challenging. At the beginning of the lockdown I gave the Year 5 and 6 an opportunity to design their own Science Investigation and as usual I was so impressed with their ideas. The following experiments were some of them which were carried out:

• Chromatography with skittle sweets making a rainbow pattern with water.

• Creating an electromagnet.

• Does chocolate dissolve in water?

• How much weight will a paper boat hold before it sinks?

• What happens to pepper with soap?

• What happens to eggs in milk and vinegar in 24hours?

Following this, I set challenges for each year group for Science. For example Year 5 challenged Year 6 to design and make a glider to fly the furthest distance. This was a really interesting challenge and there was a lot of discussion about streamlining and air resistance, prototypes and wind speed etc.

Later I took the opportunity to set the children the challenge of researching and finding out about COVID-19. They had to create a presentation or information guide for children returning to school.

Since we have returned to school the children have been improving their Science Investigational skills, using an outside classroom. For example, from Year 2 through to Year 6, the children were set the challenge of proving whether the ‘Plenty advert was true or false?’ In this is the advert that says 1 sheet is plenty and as good as 3 other sheets of another brand of kitchen roll.

It was fun to watch how the children chose their equipment and planned out what they would do to find out if the advert was true or not. Also they had lots of opportunities to re-plan and change their approach when things went wrong!

I appreciate I may be biased but Science is so much fun and engaging for children and I have enjoyed this year, so much both in school and the achievements the children have had with their online learning.

See our Plenty experiment photos here.

Mrs McNeeney