Harper's Great Scientist of the Week Experiments

Today Harper was our Scientist of the Week .... the others will have their turn tomorrow. Harper's Mum came to help Harper teach us how to make Crystal Trees. We all helped to make these trees and we will watch them grow over the next few days. Then we went outside and watched Bronwyn set off some alka seltza bombs! They were amazing - some went about 30m into the air!

Toys and Forces

Today we brought along a toy that moves from home. We had so many cool things come along. We discussed how each toy moved and which forces were used. We discovered cogs and gears and how these work. We used the class gears set to explore this concept - it was pretty exciting! I was very proud of the way the children could describe what was happening to make their toys move. The children also wrote a great story about their toy and the forces it uses. We will publish this tomorrow.

Space Station

Have you ever wondered what it is like in a space station? I just found this really cool video - have a look at this tour of a space station.

Riley's Amazing Invention

We know Riley has a very clever inventing brain.

I was particularly excited tonight when I got an email from Riley's Dad sharing this great invention that Riley has drawn.  He has used lots of great forces concepts and explained his detailed drawing very well.

Thanks for being such a clever thinker Riley and for sharing your ideas with us.

Riley's great invention

Forces in the Playground

Today we were Playground Scientists.

We went into the playground to seek forces in action!

We went on the slide, monkey bars, jungle gym, we rolled a ball and discovered all the cool forces we use when we are in the playground.  Forces really are everywhere!

Amish Friendship Bread

Today Bina brought in a bag with some ingredients in it.

She also had a piece of paper that had some instructions on it.

She explained to us that this bag had ingredients in it to make a special kind of bread called Amish Bread.  

Today is day two - we had to 'mush the bag' today to mix all the ingredients together.  Bina explained there was a chemical reaction happening in the bag and that we will be able to watch the bread grow in the bag!  We are excited about this ... thanks Bina for sharing something so great with us.

Fraction too much Friction

Today we discovered FRICTION.

Friction is what stops you from slipping.  If there are no lumps and it's all flat it will make you slip because it doesn't have any friction - Bina

Trees are all bumpy.  If they didn't have bumps there would be no friction so when people climbed them  they might have an accident and hurt themselves - Emma

There are two kinds of friction - static friction and motion friction - Grace

Friction can be bumpy - Finn

if we didn't have friction we would just slip and slide everywhere - Lily  

We went outside to discover what causes friction in our world.  We discovered the concrete, the deck and lots of other thngs are covered in bumps and dents this causes friction especially when other things with bumps and dents join forces!  Our shoes have lots of bumps and dents in them so when we walk on the bumpy concrete we create FRICTION.

We looked at Bryn's bike.  We noticed there tytpes have lots of bumps on them.  When he rides his bike the bumps on his tyres and the bumps on the concrete join forces and create FRICTION.

Celebration Assembly

Today we had a school wide Celebration Assembly. Today's assembly was particularly special for us as it was lead by the Year Two Team. The children from Room 15 presented our assembly and each class shared some great work we have been working on this term. Lucy from Room 15 did a fantastic Irish Dance. Our class shared a slideshow about our Science Week. Room 19 shared some fantastic artwork they have done. Room 7 made a slideshow about the go carts we used at Discovery Time.....and Mrs Simmons challenged Mrs Pelham to a race this week at Discovery time....I can't wait! What fun!! Have a look at these clips to see what we shared.

Celebration Assembly

This Week Year 2 is leading our school Celebration Assembly. Each of the Year 2 classes has prepared something a bit special to share with our whole school. Our class has made a movie about our Science Week. Have a look at it here.

The Theory of Water Displacement

Today we learned about another famous scientist called Archimedes.

We discovered that Archimedes is famous because he discovered a very important theory known as the Theory of Water Displacement.

We listened to a story about when Archimedes climbed into the bath and noticed the water level rose.  He called our Eureka when he realised he could use this to check if the kings crown was made of real gold.

We used Lily's drink bottle to explore this theory.  We filled it to the very top with water and then added cubes to the drink bottle.

We noticed that the water rose with each cube we added and eventually it overflowed.

Ask us to explain why this happened.  We are very clever at being able to answer this BIG question.

We learned what a hypothesis is too.

Finn took these photos for us.

Brilliant Bryn

During the week I posed a question to the class asking about where the oldest water in the world is.

We sent this question to Wonderopolis as we didn't know the answer.

Brilliant Bryn went home and investigated this question.  He did some excellent research with his family and brought his discoveries to school.

Bryn, I was so proud of the great research you did and the way you shared it with our class.

The Bouncy Egg .... Part Two

It has been over a week since we set up our bouncy egg experiment.

We were excited to discover if our egg would now bounce!

We took the egg out of the vinegar and discovered it had NO shell left.  It felt very spongy and bounced in our fingers.  We could see the yolk too.

We took it outside and tried to bounce it.  We did a little bounce first and it worked so we tried a bigger bounce ..... but it burst!!

Is it SCience or Magic?

Today we did a really cool science experiment.

Mrs Pelham put some water in a bucket. She told us she was going to spin it around.

We had to predict is we thought she would get wet.

Some of us thought yes and others thought no.

Then we did the experiment.

WOW, Mrs Pelham didn't spill a drop!

We had a turn too......all of us managed to do the same!  No water was spilt, only Finn got a tiny bit wet as he stopped spinning the bucket!

Mrs Pelhan posed this BIG QUESTION to us

Why didn't we get wet?
Was it Science or Magic?

You did it too fast and the water needs some time to drop out of the bucket - Bryn

The wind was pushing against the water to make it go back into the bucket because we were spinning it fast - Tiaan

When we spun it the air got into the water to stop it from getting out - Bina

it didn't spill because you were spinning the bucket too fast.  When you stopped it didn't come because you were swinging it too fast - Ahsley

Gravity stopped it coming  out - Charlotte

when the  bucket was spining the water was spinning too - Poppy

there was gravity, without gravity it would float in the air and come out of the bucket - Emma

the water stayed in because we swung it too fast and also it meant all the air made it stay in almost like a feather except it's like water in a bucket and you twirl it around - harper     

May the Force be With You

Today we learned about forcces.

We discovered that if you drop things they fall at the same speed even if one is heavy and the other is very light.  This is because gravity pulls them to ground at the same speed.

We also discovered that things like feathers take longer to land on the ground becuase they catch some air and that slows them down.

We dropped lots of things to test this theory.  We discovered it is true!  Even when dropped a tiny crayon and a huge, heavy drink bottle they landed at the same time!

We had a competition to see who could make their piece of paper stay in the air for the longest time.  We discovered that the greater the surface area the slower the paper fell.

Have a look at the great clips here.

Riley's Great Invention

Wow, I was so excited to hear Riley tell me about his amazing Lightening Attracting Machine.

I was even more excited to get these photos .... what an amazing invention Riley, I can't wait to find out if it worked!

Discovery Time Scientists

During Discovery time we had a great time making our own potions, using the brain box and discovering all sorts of cool science things!