Today we did an experiment with tissues and coloured pens.

We wrapped the tissues around the pens, and we scrunched it up, took it off the pen to make a shape like a caterpillar and made designs with coloured pens. We then put some water onto the caterpillars and it became coloured because the colour on the inside started to show, and it grew longer!

But we had to be very careful so the tissue didn’t break.

The teacher asked the children what they think would happen when they added the water and why they thought that would happen. Some children guessed correctly. We spoke about the tissue absorbing the water and that is why the caterpillars grew bigger.

• We have looked at what we have to do make our podcast so far we haven’t  got any music those who have offered to do it will bring in short recordings next pupil group.
• We have continued to finish what we did last pupil group.
• Most people are looking at logos and other things that will make our podcast stand out.
• Some people are downstairs asking p2’s about what they want to know about STEM.
• Once the music has been created I plan to edit it and put beats into it.

Today we made bridges out of paper in small groups of 2-3.

Everybody had to make their bridges strong so cars would be able to go across them. And they had to test strategies to make their bridges stand without falling.

Everyones bridges looked very practical and good!

Today we engineered some lanterns inspired by Chinese new year which is celebrated all over the world.

We have discussed our roles and have brainstormed ideas .

We have sent out people to survey other groups

And we went down to the p4 stem group.

People in our STEM group offered to help with the tasks for today like :

Instructions for our past experiments,

Discussing background music for our podcast,

Writing a speech for our podcast,

Names for our podcast,

We also looked at a logo for our podcast.

• We listened to an example of a child’s podcast about mental health.
• We discovered what we need to do / keep to if we want to create one:
• Talking -explaining everything
• Sticking to the subject
• Intro/outro – music -name – people
• Factual info
• Interviews / questions

STEM news to share in our podcast:

• Quantum entanglement – it is not possible for two particles to be linked together as they would need to be going at the speed of light however we have found that entanglement particles have linked in 2017.
• In Morocco people have found fossils of a terrifying sea lizard that lived millions of years ago.
• Space experts in China are in a race to build a moon base.
• Two particles of anything has never touched. So technically we’ve never touched anything in our life!
• In  early 2023, NASA, built a X-59 plane it designed to break a sound barrier quicker than creating a huge sonic boom.

Today everybody got into groups of 3 to make paper airplanes. We investigated how far the planes could fly without touching them.

Made posters of the experiment we did with the ghost tissue and magnets and turning it into a Christmas one.

And spoke about how we can do it again. And how the weight of the tissue would change the experiment. Asked the class what would happen if we used something heavier than tissue – would it still work?

discussed  north and South Pole of magnets – opposites attract.

Flying ghost experiment- the children worked in pairs or a group of 3 and put together the flying ghost experiment. They attached some fishing line to their tables with a paper clip at the end. Then they placed a tissue over the paper clip which would become their ghost. Lastly they held a magnet over the tissue with the aim of making the tissue hover looking like a flying ghost.

Today we explored ways to make a floating ghost experiment with magnets.

It was very hard.

We all tried it and wow it was difficult even when we knew who to do it.

Only a couple of people succeeded this challenge others failed but it was fun and challenging.

We figured out the stronger the magnet the better.