Jasmin’s family has been looking at the photos of the ice marble activity.
“Thank you for the instructions and balloons for this, both Jasmin and her sister enjoyed making these at home.”
We are glad that you enjoyed trying this out at home. It certainly has been a very popular activity, providing lots of valuable discussion.
Emilia’s family has been looking at the photos of the ice marbles that we made earlier in the term.
“Emilia was fascinated by the ice marbles. She told me all about them when she got home.”
The children were certainly very enthusiastic about this activity. It’s good to hear that you are talking about your learning at home Emilia.
Whenever we have taken opportunities to learn about freezing and melting outdoors, the children have always been fascinated and excited by the changing state of the water. This term, as part of our Sciences activities, we have explored this interest further by making ice marbles using balloons. As you can see, there was always an enthusiastic group of children keen to participate and investigate what would happen to our marbles. We melted them indoors and outdoors as a comparison and the children loved it when we put objects inside our ice marbles such as paper confetti, dinosaurs and animals. They loved watching to see which hidden object would appear from the melted ice first and what exactly each ice marble held. They are certainly becoming great little scientists.
Leo’s family has been looking at the recent photos of the children making slime:
 “Leo loved making the slime and told us all about it.”
It was an activity full of learning and fun which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. Well done Leo for talking about your learning at home.
One of our recent experiments in the Raindrop Room was to make slime which, as you can imagine, was a very popular activity. We talked about what an experiment is and that we were investigating what would happen if we mixed certain ingredients. Washing up liquid, cornflour, water and food colouring were our starting point and the children enthusiastically followed the instructions for making slime.
There was lots of learning involved as the children measured the correct amounts, mixed them together then discussed if our experiment was successful. They showed good evaluation skills when they realised that their mixture was too watery and they had to provide suggestions of how we could improve it. In the end, as you can see, a second batch of slime was more successful and the children had a fun learning experience. We hope that you like our slimy photos.
Some of their comments were:
Remy: it wasn’t sticky. We put too much water in it.
Leo: it was getting all fuzzy. It had soap, water, corn stuff and the thing we put in playdough (food colouring).
Leah: it feels slimy. It feels really funny.
Emilia B.: don’t add too much water.
Sofia: we made it sticky.
The children and staff in the Raindrop Room are continuing to develop their new environment and recently began work on a bug hotel. Some of the children remembered making the bug hotel earlier in the year in the Rainbow Room garden and were keen to make one for their new garden. We think that they must have made a good job of their hotel as we have seen so many ladybirds in their garden over the last week. Let’s hope that the ladybirds tell all their friends about this super hotel.
Here are a few quotes from the children and photos of them busy at work making their new bug hotel.
Anthony: I put water on the cardboard. It made it wet for the bugs. I don’t like spiders.
Finlay: we made houses for ladybugs. We used bricks and sticks.
Matthew: we made a home for all the bugs. We used sticks, bricks, straw and cardboard. The bricks have lots of holes in for the bugs to live in.
Alisha: we made a home for the bugs. I’m rolling the box up for the bugs to sleep in. I love bugs. Purple bugs are my favourite.
Emily B.: we made a home for the bugs. We put straw in it. It keeps them warm.
Archie: we made a bug hotel. Bugs like little holes to live in. I put damp cardboard in the holes so it was wet for the bugs.
I wonder if we have some engineers of the future here in Hecklegirth Nursery? The children in the Raindrop Room have been very busy investigating an old TV to find out what is inside it and to build confidence using tools. We thought that we would share a few of their comments and photos of them busy at work.
Louie: I’m fixing this bit.
Matthew: I screwed it in.
Ellie: I’m fixing the screen.
Finlay: I’m trying to get these parts out.
Kai: I see another screw.
Leah: we’re screwing some nuts on.
Archie: it’s electricity.
Our Dumfries and Galloway RAiSE teacher has looked at our photos of the children learning about handwashing.
“This is always an interesting activity. Really drives home the importance of handwashing to beat the bugs.
Who did you borrow the UV light box from? I’m sure other schools might like to try this too.
Regards
Carol Moyes
RAiSE Teacher”
Adults and children alike are always surprised at the number of germs that appear on their hands. The UV light box was from the Health Protection team at Public Health and is certainly an interesting piece of equipment for the children to use.
Carol Moyes, Dumfries and Galloway RAiSE teacher, has been looking at some of the recent posts which show our Science activities.
On our water cycle activity she commented, “What a great investigation. Books are a fantastic way to make links to science. Have you seen the STEAM-a-Story resources on our website? There are lots of STEM ideas linked to this year’s Scottish Book Trust books.”
We will have to have a look at those thank you.
Mrs. Moyes also liked the photos of bridge building in the rain: “Yet more amazing STEM in action from Hecklegirth Nursery! When I first saw the pictures I thought you had had snow; did you add washing up liquid to the puddles? “
We did add washing up liquid to our puddles. It will be interesting to see what the children decide to do when we do get snow.
The book “The Drop Goes Plop” provided the children last term with an insight into where rain comes from and they had the opportunity to experiment with rainmaking in a science activity where they investigated how many drops of paint they needed in their cloud before the rain appeared below.
As you can see this was a very popular activity and the children enjoyed experimenting with colour mixing as well as learning to use a pipette, carry out close observation and discuss their findings. Great work boys and girls!
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