Category Archives: Sciences

- Pupils, Health and Wellbeing, Sciences, Social Studies, Uncategorized

Welcome to our Goldfish!

October 2, 2024 Mrs Brown Leave a comment

We were interested in getting some fish for our playroom. We talked about what we would need to do to care for fish. We made a list of all the things we would need.

“I have a fish at home. You have to feed it every day.”- Ralph

“We need money to buy fish food.” -Conin

We bought 2 goldfish and voted to decide their names. We chose Rainbow and Goldie.

We made a feeding chart to make sure our goldfish are not over-fed.

We created a set of rules to help us take care of our fish.

We love to sit and just watch the goldfish in their tank.

Sciences

Wildflower Seed Balls

May 10, 2024 Mrs Husbands Leave a comment

by Mrs Wilson

Last year we planted some wildflower seeds in tyres in the garden and seeds from these plants have started growing this year. The children were keen to plant some more wildflower seeds and we decided to do this by first making some seed balls.

Seed balls are a really great way to plant wildflower seeds in your garden or outdoor area. Making the seed balls will not only introduce children to the variety, shapes and sizes of different seeds, but also develop their gardening skills as they learn about what seeds need to grow and how they can support wildlife in their garden or outdoor area.

“This seed looks like a little wiggly worm.”

“The bees will like these flowers when they grow.”

After planting and watering the seed balls the children are now looking forward to observing the wildflower seeds grow and hopefully welcoming some bees and butterflies and other creatures into our garden.

When the wildflowers have grown they will add a variety of colours where they have been planted, providing food and shelter for insects and other creatures. Wildflowers are also greatly important for pollinators such as bees so they can carry pollen from one plant to the next.

Why not have a go at home by following our recipe and help support wildlife in your area, or try the recipe below to make recycled paper wildflower seed balls.

https://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/resource/make-recycled-paper-wildflower-seed-balls/

Numeracy and Mathematics, Sciences

British Science Week 2024

March 31, 2024 Mrs Husbands Leave a comment

by Miss McCallum

This year’s theme for British Science Week was time.

We followed the instructions and made our own sand timers. We used a stopwatch to count how long our sand timer ran for. It was two minutes.

Using our sand timers we timed how long it took for our colour changing flower experiment to work. We made predictions on how many times we would need to turn the timer over.

Sciences, Social Studies

Our Strawberry Patch

September 28, 2023 Miss Abernethy Leave a comment

by Mrs Wilson

The strawberry plants that we planted in April have finished producing fruit so we have been very busy caring for our strawberry patch.

We have been weeding out some grass that has grown there and cutting off leaves that have turned brown.

We noticed that lots of runners have grown from our strawberry plants and we have been learning how to plant these using compost, pots, trowels, dibbers and watering cans, so that we can grow new strawberry plants.

One of the children thought it would be a good idea to make a new sign for our strawberry patch so we used some old wood and acrylic paint to make a new one.

We have also been developing our awareness of how we can care for the environment by reusing and recycling different items. We made our own plant food by cutting up banana skins, left over from snack, into small pieces and adding them to old bottles filled with water. After a few days, the banana water will be ready to use as plant food to help our strawberry runners to grow.

Sciences, Technologies

Our Potato Harvest

August 23, 2023 Mrs Brown Leave a comment

We harvested some of the potatoes we have been growing in our garden.

We boiled them to make some yummy mashed potato and used the leftovers to make potato scones for snack. So tasty!

Why not try our recipe at home-

450g floury potatoes, peeled and cooked
1/2tsp salt
50g butter
100g flour

1. Mash potatoes,add salt, butter and flour to give a stiff mixture.
2. Turn out onto floured surface, knead gently and roll out to a thickness of 1cm.
3. Cut into triangles and cook on a hot greased griddle for 4-5 minutes on each side.

I wonder what we will make next….

Health and Wellbeing, Numeracy and Mathematics, Sciences

Sunny Side Up At Glenwood

May 31, 2023 Miss Abernethy Leave a comment

by Mrs Burnett

Continuing our theme of Spring planting, what a lot we have learned from simply planting a few little sunflower seeds.

Back in March, to set the stage for World Down’s Syndrome Day we used fundraising seed bags donated by one of our lovely children, to sow some sunflowers indoors.

We scrutinised the differences between the seeds of the normal yellow sunflowers and a new red variety we had discovered.

“Awww the little white ones are so cute! It’s going to be all warm and cosy in here!”

We carefully followed the instructions on how to plant the seeds, learning what plants need to grow.

Keen to learn what was happening to our seeds under the soil, we looked at fact books about sunflowers and watched time lapse videos of the sunflower life cycle on the iPad.

We have been checking our pots regularly and when the sunny weather came, we transferred them to a sheltered spot in the garden. We ordered them by size and gave each one a number and a name including Bonzo, Sunny and Apple Crumble!

Developing our numeracy skills, we have been having a go at estimating and then measuring the sunflowers’ height progress, plotting the results on a chart.

During a sunflower health check, we spotted that two plants had mysteriously lost their leaves. On closer examination we noticed a rogue slug and problem solved together…

“Oh yuck…what will we do with the slug?”

“It’s just a baby one.”

“It will eat our sunflowers.”

“We have to take it away from Bonzo!”

“Maybe we could put it in the bug hotel for a holiday?”

Having gently relocated the slug off on its holidays and continuing to provide Bonzo and friends with tender loving care, we are trying hard to be patient as we wait for our sunflowers to bloom.

Roll on summer 😎

Health and Wellbeing, Numeracy and Mathematics, Sciences

Let’s Get Ready For Spring…

March 29, 2023 Miss Abernethy Leave a comment

by Mrs Wilson

The children have been very busy over the last few weeks planning and preparing everything we need to get ready to start planting in our nursery garden.

We made a floor map to add our ideas about what we needed to do and what we would like to grow.

“I’m drawing rain at the top. Plants need water so they can grow.”

One of the ideas from the floor map was to plant pumpkin seeds so we could grow our own for Halloween. We learned that pumpkin seeds are planted on their sides and when they are growing they will need lots of water.

“There are lots and lots of weeds here. I need to dig them all out.”

We have been developing our fine and gross motor skills as we used trowels to dig out weeds and turn over the soil in our raised beds so the soil is prepared for planting. Some of the children remembered that last year some of our plants were eaten by slugs, so we decided to go on a slug hunt in the garden so we could remove them.

“This slug is really big. It’s all slimy.”

Using soapy water and sponges we washed out old plant pots so they are ready for planting our new seeds.

Potatoes are always a favourite to grow with the children at our family centre. We used our observation skills and magnifying glasses to learn about chitting seed potatoes to allow the eyes to grow before we can plant them.

“I can see the eyes. They are really small.”

To decide what we are going to plant we used buttons to choose our three favourite fruits or vegetables to grow in the garden.

“Strawberries are the winners. They have the most.”

We made a graph using unifix cubes to help interpret the results of our fruit and vegetable survey.

The children are now looking forward to planting in the garden. This will help to develop their knowledge and understanding about how the different plants grow and how to look after them, as well as the opportunity to taste a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables when they are ready to harvest.

Further information about growing fruits, vegetables and flowers and gardening with children can be found on the following websites:

https://www.rhs.org.uk/education-learning/gardening-children-schools/family-activities/grow-it

https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/tips-for-gardening-with-children/

Literacy and English, Sciences

Virtual Nature Schools – Water

February 9, 2023 Miss Abernethy Leave a comment

by Miss Liddell

During our Virtual Nature School journey, we explored the theme of water.

We asked the children to think about places where they might find water. They had lots of great ideas such as in rivers, seas, ponds, “in our taps” and “in bottles.” One child shared:

“When it rains and then I can jump in big puddles!”

The children then decided they wanted to play outside in the puddles and explore the water. However, we had one BIG problem…it wasn’t raining! Somebody suggested:

“We could do a rain dance and make it rain!”

This led to a whole range of creative learning experiences. We watched videos of Native Americans doing a rain dance, we made headdresses and we explored and played musical instruments.

“Where did he get those big feathers? What’s that called?”

The children were disappointed when their rain dance did not work so we discussed the water cycle to understand how rain is made.

We learned lots of new vocabulary such as evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection.

We also did some fun experiments to see how the water cycle worked.

“Boiling water is hot. It will burn you!”

Literacy and English, Sciences

Virtual Nature Schools

November 1, 2022 Miss Abernethy Leave a comment

by Miss Chrystal

We have recently introduced the Virtual Nature School program within our centre. This term, we have been using natural resources to develop speech and language skills through a range of activities, all led by the children’s interests.

The children have developed their communication skills through a variety of different water and mud play experiences. This has enabled the children to explore new vocabulary, talk about their ideas and think about how things change within the natural environment.

Water

The children have been exploring the different ways that we can experiment with water and colour change. We made our own clouds and rain using shaving foam and food colouring.

The children became confident at using a range of resources such as pipettes and paintbrushes. They were able to describe the change of state when the ice melted and also describe the colour changes that took place in the water.

We also explored different pictures of water experiences and the children discussed of what they associate each picture with:

“I see water at the park.” “ I go swimming.” “When it is raining, I can jump in puddles.”

Mud

The second element we explored was mud. The children led their own learning within this block with staff observing the children’s play. We were fortunate that it rained so we put on our wellies and waterproofs and went to play in the mud.

“Look, muddy puddles! I am jumping so high to make a huge splash!”

The children were engrossed in their play. They used their imaginations and they were confident to express their ideas and interests. They created their own mud paint as well as using paper to create muddy footprints from their wellies.

The children developed their confidence by talking and exploring a variety of vocabulary when asked to describe the texture of the mud.

“It is squelchy!”

“The rain has made it all gooey and sticky!”

- Achievement, - Pupils, Health and Wellbeing, Sciences, Social Studies, Technologies

Eco Schools….Our 7th Green Flag!

September 30, 2022 Mrs Brown Leave a comment

We are delighted to have received our 7th Eco Schools Green Flag. This is a wonderful achievement and has been down to the hard work and commitment of the children, staff and wider community of Glenwood.

Read the wonderful feedback here.

Sciences

Colour Science

September 29, 2022 Mrs Husbands Leave a comment

by Miss Callaghan

The children have been enjoying participating in a wide range of science activities this month. This provides a great opportunity for children to explore materials and observe changes.

“What happens if I mix that one and that one (yellow & red). It’s orange!”

We have been exploring colour mixing with primary colours and pipettes. The children have been growing their confidence in using charts for information and have been using them effectively to make choices and plan which colour they would like to mix. The pipettes have been great for developing fine motor skills and children have enjoyed discussions around colours and how they change.

“I want to make green – I need blue and yellow. It’s green!”

We then focused on using different materials to investigate change and colour. The children used glue to create a pattern on a piece of paper then covered it in salt. Children were able to use their problem solving skills to predict what would happen when they used the pipettes to drop colour onto the salt and glue.

“I think the colours will mix.”

“It moves slow!”

“It looks like fireworks that I went to watch.”

The children were excited to see the colour droplets expand as they travelled through the salt and when they added another colour beside it, the colour would mix and travel.

Lastly, we expanded on our materials and made puffy paint. The children used flour, baking powder, salt and food colouring and mixed it together to make a cake-like consistency. This also involved the use of instructions and a recipe, the children were able to recognise numbers and count out how much they needed. The last set of instructions was to put our creation into the microwave for 30 seconds and watch the painting come to life! The picture puffed up and the children were delighted with the result, this was a great opportunity to explore cause and effect and it left an open ended opportunity for discussion.

Sciences, Uncategorized

Marine Litter

May 26, 2022 Mrs Husbands Leave a comment

The children have been learning about making life and the impact rubbish can have on animals living in the water! Let’s dive in and take a closer look at what they learned..

There are 700 types of animals affected by plastic pollution:

“700 is like the whole sea! We need to save them before they get extinct like the dinosaurs”

“If we save one fish from every type then we can save them all next year and all the years after that”

10% of all dead animals and fish get caught in plastic bottles, bags and nets:

“If a fish or a birdie gets stuck in a net then it can’t move and be safe”

“Nets stop swimming”

“Babies and children like me can suffocate with plastic bags and so can fish and birds!”

20% of fish are known to have plastic in their stomachs:

“If they eat it and don’t mean to they get sick and sad”

“Some fish accidentally eat plastic bottle tops and straws because they think they are food”

We asked our nursery friends some questions about what rubbish they see on their way into nursery. After seeing the results we used recyclable materials to create a ‘3D’ poster of ways rubbish affects the sea life.

“We made a rainbow fish with masking tape, bottle tops and wooden sticks to show all the rubbish pollution”

“The nets are making the fish sad because they get trapped in them all of the time and they can’t get out”

“Nets get fish trapped”

“Plastic bottle tops make the fish sick because they think that they are food to eat”

What can we do to help? Here are the children’s ideas…

“We can make paper straws by rolling up paper and then we can recycle them”

“We can keep the grounds clear by not littering”

“We can go on a litter pick with our mums and dads and we can do them in nursery too”

“We need to work together with team work to help the oceans get free from plastic”

“We can have a plastic bottle bag to collect the, all at the door and use them for junk modelling”

#source2sea #KeepScotlandBeautiful #LfS

Sciences

Magnets

May 7, 2022 Mrs Husbands Leave a comment

The children in the Orchard bubble have been exploring magnets and how they work. They used horseshoe magnets to find out what was magnetic in the nursery garden.

A basket of items made from different materials was sorted into magnetic and non-magnetic items. The children were very interested to find out that not all metals are magnetic and a magnet will only attract certain metals such as iron or steel.

The children investigated if a magnet would still attract a metal paper clip if it was covered over by different materials.

The children used their senses to help understand that when two magnets are near each other they either repel or attract each other.

We looked at an information book about magnets to learn that a magnet is strongest at its two ends and found out that they are called the north pole and the south pole.

The children were also interested to learn from the information book that earth is a giant magnet and we can use a compass to find where the magnetic north is.

Expressive Arts, Sciences

Icy Days, Icy Play

January 6, 2022 Mrs Brown Leave a comment

When we returned after the Christmas break, we noticed some of the containers left outdoors were full of ice. We thought of how the ice had formed and how to get the ice out.

Indoors, we decided to explore ice in different ways. We froze some water and used pipettes and coloured water to investigate the melting ice.

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy and English, Numeracy and Mathematics, Sciences

Playdough and loose parts play

June 22, 2021 User deactivated Leave a comment

The orchard bubble have been busy!

The orchard bubble has shown a great interest in making playdough over the last few weeks. The children have taken responsibility for their own learning by coming up with different ideas of how they want to create their playdough from colours and texture. “I want blue.”

“I want pink.”

The children had shown an interest in loose parts and wanted to include this in their playdough experience. By incorporating loose parts with playdough the children are developing their fine motor skills. They use a variety of movements such as pressing, rolling and stretching. This will help to strengthen the muscles in their hand which in turn will help them with their writing skills.

“I want to use leaves.”

“Oooohhh feathers.”

The children showed ownership over their creations and seemed to enjoy the fact that they could start again when one model was finished. They did show interest in taking them home so our next steps will be trying to create models with loose parts and clay.

“Can we take them home?”

Sciences

Superb Science

June 7, 2021 User deactivated Leave a comment

Over the past few weeks we have been carrying out a number of different experiments using water and food colouring. Using our observation skills we are beginning to recognise simple cause and effect. We have been developing our ability to ask relevant questions and making predictions about what will happen next.

We used different concentrations of food colouring to see what flower would change colour first.

“How fast will it go?”

“Is mine going to change colour?”

We also made our own lava lamps!

“Look at my bubbles, my bubbles are moving.”

We made a rainbow water walk.

“The colour is getting sucked up like a straw.”

“They have mixed together.”

Sciences

Runner Beans

April 26, 2021 Mrs Husbands Leave a comment

The children have been very interested to learn about planting and growing runner bean seeds for our new family centre. By placing a runner bean seed in a zip lock bag with some wet cotton wool and sticking this on to the window, the children were able to observe the seeds germinate as the roots and shoots started to grow.

“I can see the roots going down and the shoots going up.”

“They are going to be so tall.”

“The roots are getting really long now.”

After about 10 days the children filled some small plant pots with soil and carefully planted a seedling in each one and then watered them all.

“I will give them some water. They need water so they can grow.”

The children took responsibility for checking that the soil in the pots was not too dry and made sure each plant had enough water to help it grow.

“The beans need a little drink of water. I touched the soil with my finger and it felt dry.”

To prepare for planting the runner beans outdoors a handheld drill was used to drill drainage holes in planters, the planters were filled with soil and canes were added to provide support.

“I’m turning the handle round and round. I can see little bits of plastic at the bottom.”

To help carefully remove the plant from the pot without damaging it, the children learned about gently rolling and squeezing the pot with their fingers and hands. They were very interested to see how the roots had grown inside the pot.

“Look at all the roots. There are so many.”

When the children had finished planting all the runner bean plants they chose a sunny spot to put them in the garden and gave them a big drink of water.

“The beans are really tall. They have lots of leaves.”

Further information about growing runner beans can be found on the following website: https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-runner-beans/

Expressive Arts, Sciences

Sensory Play

November 18, 2020 Mrs Brown Leave a comment

The children have been making potions, adding, mixing and pouring a variety of liquids and solids during their sensory play. During their sensory play the children are developing a range of skills and processes such as problem-solving, enquiry, experimentation, researching and investigating.

“The ice is cold. It’s melting when I pour the water on it.”

“I can smell chocolate and coffee.”

“I am squeezing it. It’s frozen. The heart is melting.”

“I’m pouring it. Look! It has bubbles.”

Did you know ?
Sensory play activities naturally encourages children to explore and investigate through their senses: touch, smell, taste, movement, balance, sight and hearing.
Hands on sensory activities can be set up at home using a variety of sensory materials found around the home or garden.

A few ideas to try at home-
Go on a walk and encourage children to explore textures in nature
Close your eyes and listen for sounds in the home or outdoors
Cooking activities or tasting new foods
Messy play using materials such as mud, water, sand or paint.

Some of the benefits of Sensory Play-
Stimulates the senses
Develops muscles in hands and arms
Develops creativity
Awareness of shape, space and measure
Language development
Mark making
Experimenting and sharing ideas
Developing relationships
Can be a calming experience