Tag Archives: Science

What can you SEE👀?

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.

Dancing Raisins

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

 

Ice ice baby! ❄

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”!

 

Super scientists👹‍🔬

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”

We’re going on a bug hunt 🐞

In the garden we are taking part in the 30 day wildlife experiences. The children chose day 23 which was a bug hunt, we searched for our favourite mini beasts.

We worked as a team, flipping over logs, checking under stones, looking through flowers, soil and the grass.


“I found a ladybug”     “Look there’s a worm”

There are so many benefits of going on a bug hunt;

Learn about insects
Observational skills
Social skills
Exercise and fresh air
Encourages children to explore

After searching for our mini beasts, we decided to make our very own butterfly feeding table. We gathered all the materials needed and got started. The children showed brilliant fine manipulative skills when cutting and gluing.


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

Now we wait for the butterfly’s to come visit our garden.

The floor is lava

Today the children played  “The floor is lava” but with a twist…

They worked together to collect different materials including:

  • Paper/card
  • lollipop sticks
  • twigs
  • Small figures
  • building blocks
  • Cars
  • Bowls

They then used the materials to design and build a stable structure together that was suitable to save the little figures and cars from the lava without it falling over.

“It needs to be up high, what can we use?”

”we can use the blocks to get it high”


The children came up with a variety of ways to save the cars and people from the lava while developing their listening and teamwork skills.

They used their problem solving skills to organise the different shaped blocks by size so that the figure didn’t fall over.

”The big ones need to go to the bottom because they will fall if they are at the top, they won’t balance”

“The bowl can go under in case he falls”

The children had so much fun making a safe structure for the cars and people using materials around the nursery. Why don’t you try creating your own at home.

What is a scientist?

Today we have been learning about and  discussing scientists.

In our science area  during a group discussion we used a mind map to  record what we already know  and knowledge we could share with each other.

Here are some or our thoughts



“ A scientist looks at things with a magnifying glass “

”They make explosions ”

”They investigate things”

We looked at things  as scientist might wear and why. Some of us tried dressing up as one.

“They wear coats so they don’t get messy from mixtures and gloves and goggles to keep their hands and eyes safe”.

We  looked at some of the equipment that a scientist might use with their experiments. We looked at magnifying glasses and microscopes and we learned that they help to make things bigger and  easier to look at. At first we found it a little bit tricky as we has to focus the lens but we soon got the hang of it and had fun exploring and looking more  closely in our Discovery area.

 

We took time to look at and read through a popular book we have in nursery. It is called ‘Ada Twist Scientist’. This book tells the story of a girl who has lots of questions and always wonders how things work and why. We watched her story on our Promethium board to help tell us more about how  Ada  the scientist  investigates things.

Do you have questions about how things work? Or what new things can you discover together at home?

 

 

The water cycle 🌩

This morning the children have enjoyed revisiting the ice gardens that they made last week. They could see the different layers within the ice and noticed that the ice was starting to melt in the sun.
“The sun is hot today.”
”The ice is melting!”
We discussed the different properties of water and this led to a discussion about where water comes from. I explained to the children that all the water on our planet continuously moves in a cycle. The sun dries up the rain and sends the vapour up to the sky where the cold air turns it in to clouds. Then once the clouds are full the water comes back to earth as rain.
We then created our own rain clouds.

We used shaving foam to represent the clouds then dropped food colouring on top to represent the rain. This is a great visual for the children to see the cloud filling up before it starts to rain. The children then  experimented with adding more drops and also used different colours to see what would happen.

“It’s raining!”
“It looks like an explosion!”

“I mixed them together and now it looks like coffee.”
”Look, the orange is falling!”

The children had a great time taking part in our science experiment to learn about the water cycle. I’m sure we will be repeating this experience again in the near future.
Why don’t you try this with your budding scientists at home and share your experience on our twitter page @cartmillcentre

Ready, Steady, Go!

Today in the Discovery room the children have been building ramps to see which car would go the fastest and win the race.

To explore this further, we decided to build a variety of different heights and level of ramps. We gathered together some of our planks of wood and different materials we could use to test and explore different types of forces.

The children took turns and predicted what ramp would be the fastest. We found the higher the ramp was, the faster the car would travel.

“high one is the best ,it’s the fastest”
”It is speedy”

”Watch mine zoom”

We added bubble wrap to one ramp to see how it affected the speed of the cars travelling down them.


We found that adding the bubble wrap this would make our cars slower and not travel so far.

”This makes it go too slow”

”Look how far mine went”

”My one is the fastest now”

To investigate time and distance further, we used a stop watch to time our cars travelling and a tape measure to see how far they could go.

Why not explore this at home! You could try using balls or pebbles to investigate force, distance and time.

 

Milk and Germ Science Experiment

It’s Friday, what better way to end the week with a science experiment. Well, it is British Science Week!

Today in the Discovery Room, in our technology area, we have decided to do a milk food colouring experiment on the light table. For this experiment  we gathered everything we needed-a bowl, milk, food colouring, fairy liquid and some cotton swabs.

We poured enough milk in a bowl to cover the surface with the depth of about a 1/4 inch. We then added a few drops of different food colouring in the centre of the bowl of milk quite close to each other.

Next for the fun bit ! We dipped the cotton swabs in a small amount of fairy liquid and then dipped it in the colours one at a time for around 10/15 seconds.
We were careful to move each swap onto one colour at a time, without disturbing the milk.
We were amazed to see how the colours swirled and changed in the milk especially when we placed the cotton swab on to the different colours .


Wow look at the burst of colours!

“ It’s like fireworks ”  “ It’s moving “

”It turned into a new colour” “ It has waves in it”

”The milk has changed colour “   “It looks like dynamite”

We developed our science skills by investigating the effects of adding substance together which cause a reaction.

Because we had so much fun, we decided to do a Germ Experiment.
We added a good coating of glitter into a bowl of water (if you don’t have glitter you can use pepper instead ). Whilst we did this, we discussed how the glitter represented the germs. We then dipped our fingertips into the water and watched how the glitter stuck to our finger, this showed us how germs stick to our hands if we don’t wash them with soap. The children then dipped their clean finger into soapy water before dipping it back into the bowl. The children were amazed to see how the glitter/germs spread  across the water avoiding their soapy finger.

“ Germs stuck to our finger”  “Germs don’t like soap”

We concluded that if we use soap to wash our hands, we can avoid germs. This experiment also developed our well-being skill by learning how to keep clean and healthy.

It was fun and enjoyable to create these  memorable science experiences for the children, so why not continue British science week at home over the weekend and perhaps send us some photographs of you budding scientists!