Science

Walking Water:  This science lesson shows mixing primary colours and it also shows that if we share individual ideas we get new ideas!

The children were fascinated as the ed and yellow walked up the paper towel into the empty glass and made orange, the yellow and blue walked to make green and the blue and red walked to make purple.  We discussed absorbency and how once the paper towel had absorbed all the liquid it could, it started to fill the empty cups.  The children made a hypothesis that the empty cups would become full and the full ones would be left empty - they were surprised to see the levels of all the cups became even.

While we watched the colours mix we discussed how we can come up with new, better ideas if we work together and share our thinking.

The Power of Bleach

We had great fun experimenting with household bleach.  We predicted the water would change to blue when we bleached navy blue cotton fabric, and were surprised to find it went orange, the material also changed to a red/orange colour but the cotton stitching stayed navy blue. We learned that natural fabric such as cotton bleaches more easily than nylon.  Bleach releases oxygen molecules = oxidation, this breaks the chemical binds of chromophores.   Chromophore molecules either reflect no colour or a colour outside the visible spectrum.
No colour is white to people.

Living Things: We have been learning about living things this term.  We really enjoyed making our own mini gardens.

The science of Meringues and Pavlovas.

As part of our Turangawaewae (Our place - where we belong) learning we looked at 'Kiwiana'.  Today we made mini pavlovas with cream and kiwifruit, then wrote a procedure.  We also looked at the science in meringues - they were first made in 1600's when chefs realised whipping egg whites fluffed up.  Egg whites are 90% water made up of protein molecules.  When whipped the water loving bits cling to the water and the other bits cling to the air.  Cream of tarter is an acid and stops it collapsing.  The vote was 'They were YUM!!'

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The Magic Bag Trick

Reactions: Fluffy Paint

We made some very cool art work today using kitchen ingredients.  When we saw the ingredients we made a hypothesis that we would make something to eat because it was food.













*NB* The children did ask what would happen if we left the picture in for more than 30 seconds - we did actually prove that paper would catch fire in the microwave if there was only little dots of paint.  It is safer if there is quite a bit paint to avoid 'fire'.

Bubbles

All children (and many adults!) are fascinated with bubbles - it's so much fun making bubbles and watching them float around.  We made bubbles and observed them carefully.  We wondered why we could see rainbows in them.  We then researched bubbles to find out why they were round, why they floated and what caused a rainbow.

Water 

We were learning about the water cycle.  We found out that water follows a continuous cycle.  The sun evaporates water, drying it from the land, it then condensates and forms clouds, when the clouds are full it precipitates (fog, mist, rain, hail, sleet, snow) and the cycle continues over again.  We also did some research to find out facts about water.

Lesley came to show how the actions of people affect the waterways.

We brainstormed the importance of having fresh water and didi an experiment where we filtered dirty water to make it fresh.  We used small stones, collon balls and handy towels to filter the water.



We wrote some fabulous acrostic poems about Rain Drops.  We used wax crayons and water and dye for our art illustrations.

We compares fresh water and salt water.  Our hypothesis was that the egg would sink because we though it was only the taste that was different between fresh and salt water.  Our egg floated in salt water but sank in fresh water.  We discovered that salt water is denser which means the molecules in salt water are closer than in fresh water so the molecules hold the egg up.  In fresh water the egg pushes the molecules aside and sinks.

We did some great sea silhouette art and wrote about why we need to protect water and how we can make a change ourselves.

Making Slime

How Our Eyes Work

The children were fascinated by the fact that sometimes I wear glasses and sometimes I wear contact lens.  We decided to do some research on sight.
We were surprised to find that our eyes see everything upside down and our brain turns it round the right way.




Welcome to S5's Science Lessons for 2017