During the last week of May, we had a Science week in Gold Class. The children enthusiastically participated in a range experiments. The children tried to mix water and oil and to their surprise they could not do it and the oil just kept floating on top the water. They also did the volcano experiment which caused great excitement but before we conducted the experiment the children were very eager to predict what would happen when a Mentos sweet was placed inside the bottle of cola. Predictions included; “It is going to float!”, “It’s going to explode and go up into the sky!”. It was a pleasure to see their surprised faces when the cola fizzled up. “It was a volcano! ” they exclaimed. Our sound of the week was /v/ so it was lovely to observe how the children made the link to our phonics learning. Later in the week, children helped to mix herbs into water to see if they could make perfume. However, after a few days the water didn’t look very nice and there was no herby smell!
Another experiment that we carried out was to observe bread when it is stored in different conditions. The children left slices of bread in the open air uncovered and other slices stored inside plastic bags. They noticed that by the end of the first day the texture of the bread in the air had changed and it was now hard. The children continued to observe but the changes were very small in that week. However, after the half term break the children were surprised to see very obvious changes which caused quite a reaction such as, “AGHH disgusting, it’s green!”, “I don’t want that, it’s bad”, “The bread is spoiled”.
The children learnt that not all experiments will be successful or have the results that we expected but it is important to try as that is how we make new discoveries!
Finally, the children also had another very tasty surprise when they returned from the break because their strawberries were ready to eat and they tasted delicious!
