Tag Archives: Science

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The very hungry butterfly 🦋

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From looking after and caring for our butterflies in nursery to saying goodbye and letting them go in our garden. We had discussions on where they flew away too and wondered if they would come visit us again. So the children decided they wanted to make our very own butterfly feeding table.

“Do you think the butterflies will come back.”

We gathered all materials needed and got started. The children showed brilliant fine manipulative skills when cutting and gluing.

”I’m making my flower all rainbow and the butterfly will see it.”

Once it was all glued down and ready to go we filled up the jam jar lids with sugar and water and looked around the garden for the best place to put it.

“It needs to be super high.”

The children decided it would be best to hang it up high so the butterflies can find it, so with a little help we tied it to a branch.

Now time to wait and see if our butterflies come and visit us 🦋

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

How do we make paint move?

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Today we have been combining gross motor art with science to learn how to make paint move without using a brush.

“We can pour it.” “It needs to be high up.”

The children had some great ideas so got straight to work! We mixed up the paint and found some pipes to roll it down. One of the children noticed his pipe was sitting further out so he was sure his paint would go further.


The blue paint went further than the yellow! On examination we found the yellow paint was thicker than the blue so we then tried adding more water to the paint. It went much further than the first attempt!

The next pair decided to experiment with altering the height of the pipes to see if that would make the paint travel further.

“I’m putting it on the highest one!”

We found that the paint travelled faster down the pipe when it was higher and it did make it go further.

The next challenge was to direct the paint on to the paper to create a long distance artwork. We had to use all of the prior learning to make sure we mixed the paint to the right consistency, we had to make sure the pipes were at the right height and we had to aim in the right direction. Very tricky!

The children all enjoyed predicting what would happen each time we changed a variable and then testing the theory. A beautiful crossover of science and art!

Article 29- you have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible.

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Our beautiful butterflies 🦋

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What a wonderful surprise we got today walking into nursery to see our butterflies had emerged  from their chrysalises.

The children were super excited “we can now feed the butterflies”. We had a discussion about what the butterflies can eat.

“We need to feed the butterflies so they grow.”
“Then we can let them out to fly away.”

“The butterflies need sugar water.”
“Can we give them fruit.”

We read the guidance instructions and it was suggested that we feed the butterflies slices of citrus fruit and sugar water. So the children cut up pieces of oranges and filled cup lids with sugar water. Next we gently placed the fruit and water into the butterflies net and watched to see what happened.

“We need to be so careful so we don’t scare them.”

“They are going to eat all the oranges.

“That one is going over to the water.”

We will continue to look after our butterflies until they are ready to be released into our garden. The children have enjoyed watching every step as they grow. 🦋

Special Event

The life cycle of a butterfly 🦋

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Today we had a very exciting delivery in our nursery! The children were very excited to see what was inside the special box. It’s time to learn about… the life cycle of a butterfly 🦋

First we had a little look at our new caterpillar friends, which sparked some interesting and thought provoking questions.

“It’s like a teeny wee baby worm. Is it a caterpillar?”

“Why does it have a web around it?”

We talked about all the different stages the caterpillar goes through…

“They go into a cocoon first. That helps them get all cosy and grow big and strong”

“When they hang upside down, that’s when they are a chrysalis. They’re nearly ready to pop out then!”

The children showed great curiosity, and came up with some interesting suggestions on what we thought might happen next, using the pictures as clues.

“Maybe the big box is for when they’re butterflies. Because they will need lots of space”

“They might want some snacks too”

“What do butterflies eat?”

Seeing how living things grow and develop over time with proper care in our very own playrooms is a great opportunity  for our children to explore and develop life skills. We are so excited to learn how to take care of our new creatures, and watch them transform into beautiful butterflies 🦋

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Melting snowballs

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Within the science area we have been discussing the properties of materials, particularly learning about the difference between solids and liquids.

While playing with ice the other day we started discussing the properties of snow, hailstones and rain. We decided to make our own snowballs and experiment with various ways of melting them.  We created our snowballs by making gloop and then freezing it inside plastic baubles.

When we took them out of the freezer, they were so cold and frozen we couldn’t even open them and had to put them in the bowl of hot water to start the melting process.

Once we got the snowballs on to the trays the children experimented with dripping hot water on top of them. One of the children realised that if he made a hole and put water inside the hole it speeded up the process. His friend decided to make the holes and he could squeeze the water in. Great team work! The other children realised they could use the tools to help chip away at the snowballs.

Throughout this experience we discussed how the freezing and melting process changes water from a solid to a liquid and back again. After they were all melted we had a great time playing with the gloop and getting messy!

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Cart Mill’s Ice Cream Factory

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In the small world area we have continued to learn about how our food gets from farm to fork. This past week we have been learning about where milk comes from and what other foods can be made from it.
We started by learning about milking the cows.

Then we learned the milk can be used to make butter and experimented with making our own. We put cream in a tub and shook it and shook it and shook it until it turned in to butter. We listened to the song Shake it Off and had a dance while shaking! Then we spread some of the butter on a bit of bread to taste it.


Then this morning we used the milk to make ice cream! First we made a mixture of milk, cream, vanilla and a little sugar. Then we popped it in a bag and sealed it then popped it in another bag and covered it in ice. Then the shaking process began again…

We took the mixture out and had a feel;

– “It’s freezing!”

– “It’s all hard!”

– “It’s a solid now!”

Then time for the best bit…… the tasting!

Literacy

What can you SEEđź‘€?

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It’s STEM  week! (Science, Technology,Engineering, Mathematics)

Following on from learning about the sense of hearing in the science area we have been talking about how many senses there are and what they all are. We found out there are 5 senses. Today we discussed which of our senses we would like to focus on, we chose sight.

The children looked through the microscope to SEE the different specimens on the micro slides.

“I can see it, it looks like a little bit of grass from the garden”

“It’s tiny stones”  “Now it is BIG”

Next we did an experiment to SEE if the items we chose would Sink or Float. We discussed each item before it went in the water. We predicted whether each individual item  would float or sink, developing our critical thinking skills.

“The golf ball will sink”

“Why do you think it will sink?”

“Because it’s heavy”

“The pom pom will float”

“i know, it’s not heavy, it’s light”

”I can see it sinking all the way to the bottom”

We used our mark making skills to record our findings. The children made tally marks for each item and recorded them on a table.

“3 floated and 2 sinked”

For our final experiment, the children used pipettes (developing their fine motor skills and hand- eye co-ordination) to add different coloured food colouring to individual glases and then filled them up with water.

In each glass they added a paper towel so that half was in one glass and half in the one beside.

We watched as the coloured water transferred from one glass to another causing some of the colours to mix creating different colours in the empty glass.

“Look i can SEE it moving, the blue and yellow have turned green”

“They mix together”

The children have had lots of fun exploring their sight while being mini scientists.

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Dancing Raisins

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This morning our little scientists have been carrying out more experiments and making predictions about the outcomes. We are learning about forces and describing their effects.

We started by filling three glasses- one with still water, one with fizzy water and one with super fizzy limeade. We then made predictions about about what would happen if we put a raisin in each of the glasses.


We then dropped the raisins in the glasses to test our predictions and were amazed by the results.

Through a previous bubble experiment, we have learned that bubbles have air called carbon dioxide in them. It is these bubbles that are attaching on to the raisins and making them float but when the bubbles pop the raisins fall back to the bottom as they are denser and heavier than water. This makes the raisins look like they are dancing. We then continued to add more raisins and discovered that the smaller ones were lifted up by the bubbles more easily.

”The bigger ones are heavier and they just make the bubbles pop.”

If you have some sparkling water and raisins in the house, please try this at home and share your findings with us @cartmillcentre

 

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Ice ice baby! ❄️

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We noticed on the weather forecast that it was to be extremely cold today.. so we decided to try a science experiment!

Last night, we covered our sea animals with water and left them overnight to see what would happen…

it turned to ICE!!!

The children discussed how the water felt to touch…

” it is so cold I need to wear my gloves”

”if we scrape it, it makes little marks on the ice”

Through exploring cause and effect, the children wondered how we could break the ice?
“we could hit it and it will break maybe”, “we could maybe scrape the ice like daddy does on the car” , “what about a hammer”.

so first we tried with little wooden hammers to break the ice, the children discovered that it chipped the ice a little bit but not enough to break the ice.

So then we borrowed one of the hammers from our tinker table…

“Look Sarah Jane it’s working now!”

”We can free the animals from the ice”!

 

Outdoor Learning

Super scientists👨‍🔬

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Today in our garden we have been super scientists! We decided to make our own chalk paint, so we gathered all the ingredients needed and got started. We used our problem solving and teamwork skills to follow the steps to create the paint. Firstly we added in the cornflour, water and then food colouring of choice.

The children then painted lonely designs on the floor.


“I’m painting my  mummy”

”Look at mines, it’s a funny face”

The children then decided they wanted to mix in different ingredients to see what happens, so we mixed in bicarbonate soda and vinegar and waited to see what happened.

“Wow it’s exploding”

“Mine looks like a volcano”

“It’s bubbling”