James and the Giant Peach Investigation

For Roald Dahl Day, we looked at James and the Giant Peach and did an investigation into how we could stop it rolling using friction.

We tried rolling a peach over several different surfaces, first predicting which we thought would slow the peach the most.

Preservation Experimentation

In their adventure, the children watched clips from a programme where explorers dived down and found ancient Mayan pots preserved in caves. They wondered how these were still intact thousands of years later. They completed a science investigation to find out why.

The children set up an experiment using water, salt and apples. They thought that there may have been salt in the water or air to preserve the pots. One slice of apple was placed in the bowl, one was placed in water and another in salt water.

After a few days they saw that, matching their predictions, the apple in the salt water had been preserved the best. They wrote up their findings.

Part of our wartime adventure focused on our science topic of light. We first thought about the importance of light during the war or the need to block light during blackouts. The children first learnt about some key areas of light: light sources, how we see light, how light travels and the shape of shadows through an investigation outside (until the sun was blocked by clouds).

We then completed an investigation that looked into the best materials to block light during an air raid in the Blitz. The children decided on four materials to test. They learnt about vocabulary like opaque, translucent and transparent to decipher which material would be the best and worst. They then completed the investigation and drew a table to show the results.

On Friday, a high school science teacher came in to do some science with Sycamore and Willow.

This included some experiments involving Chromatography which involved separating the colours in several coloured pens.

The teacher explained that chromatography was used by forensic scientists and that we would be analysing the ink on a 'ransom note' to discover who the perpetrator might be.

After being shown the chromatagram taken from the ink on the note, the children were given 4 coloured pens that had been confiscated from the suspects and had to use filter paper and a cup of water to make their own chromatagrams for comparison.

As a part of Science Week and in preparation for the Science Fair, Willow did an experiment which involved making ice cream! The ingredients (Milk, Cream and Vanilla Essence) were sealed and placed inside a plastic bag, which was then placed inside a larger bag along with some ice and salt. The bag then had to be shook for approximately 10 minutes to get the ice cream to freeze.

Our experiment involved testing different plastic bags to see which worked best (as some of them leaked or even exploded!).