Science | Grove Primary School and Nursery

Science

Spring 1

In our science lessons, we are learning about: Mixes and Reactions. As part of the UKS2 curriculum, we will be looking at and investigating the following:

compare and group together everyday materials on the basis of their properties, including their hardness, solubility, transparency, conductivity (electrical and thermal), and response to magnets
know that some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, and describe how to recover a substance from a solution
use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated, including through filtering, sieving and evaporating
give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic
demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes
explain that some changes result in the formation of new materials, and that this kind of change is not usually reversible, including changes associated with burning and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda.

Keep an eye out for our raisin experiments!

Magic Raisins:

This week, we have looked at the raisin and tonic water experiment (we also looked at completing the experiment with a grape).

we focused on generating vocabulary to describe what we could see. We looked at the ‘raisin and tonic water’ experiment, before repeating the experiment with grapes to make comparisons. After completing the experiment once, we generated the following vocabulary: turning, rotate, bobbing, bubbles, floating, spinning, flipping, up and down.

We then completed the experiment again, this time really focusing on what we could see (we even went down to table height to observe). We then re-gathered and discussed our thoughts. This time, we thought of different words: spin, swivel, twist, revolve, pivot, rotate on an axis, buoyant, weightless, sinking, and popping. We also focused in on what was happening to the bubbles; we noticed that when they burst, they displaced some of the liquid around them and then they sank. We observed that the raisins rested gently on the top of the bubbles until they popped. We then focused on the word sink; was this the best word we could use? We discussed the words descend, plummet and plunge and discussed the most appropriate word.

We repeated the experiment with grapes to generate comparative language. The children were encourage to discuss their ideas with a partner and they helped each other develop their ideas by offering suggestions. We observed that the grape differed as it didn’t move in the same way as the raisin. The grape flipped over whereas the raisin rotated in a near 360 degree motion.

Raisins

Autumn 2

In Science, we are learning about: Living things and their habitats.

We will be describing the the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird. We will also we looking at describing the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.

This week, we have been looking at the parts of a flower and how they are involved in the pollination and fertilisation processes. We have discovered that pollination is when pollen from the anthers on another plant of the same type lands on the female parts of a plant and that the female part of the plant (called the stigma) is sticky. We know that pollen can be carried on the wind or by insects and once it has landed on the stigma of a plant, it travels down a tube where it fertilises the ovules, which then become seeds.

We have also discovered that fertilisation is when the male cells from the pollen connect with female cells from the ovules.

Science

In Science, we are focusing on Electricity. In the curriculum, it states that:

Pupils should be taught to:

associate the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer with the number and voltage of cells used in the circuit
compare and give reasons for variations in how components function, including the brightness of bulbs, the loudness of buzzers and the on/off position of switches
use recognised symbols when representing a simple circuit in a diagram.

As part of our learning, the children have recapped the key components of a circuit, investigated why circuits will or won't work and have planned their own investigation to test how voltage impacts the volume of a buzzer or the brightness of a bulb/lamp. The children are looking forward to carrying out their investigation to see if their hypothesis is correct.