Tag Archives: changing states

How does your garden grow?

May 16, 2016 Ailie Rankin 2 Comments

As spring has well and truly sprung, our visits to the allotment have resumed.

This presents an abundance of science opportunities for the children to experience.

20160509_102759[1] — Skippy helps us learn about plants and animals in the allotment.

Guiding us in our gardening is our friend Skippy (yes he is Australian). He looks after our allotment and helps us tend to the various plants and animals we find there.

"Skippy pointing to flowers and busy bees". — “Skippy pointing to flowers and busy bees”. By Owen

We were blessed with glorious sunshine on our visit on Monday, however our session started inside thinking about what seeds need to grow and how they change.

“They need soil” – Nathan

“They need the sun” – Patrick

“Water!” – Harmony

Skippy showed us the beans and peas that were planted by the last group.

the bean had started to grow a little! We could see the bean shell still on the top!

We could see a real difference between a bean without soil, water, heat and light and one that had.

They had grown into little plants.

Skippy told us about how the plants were buried in the soil to grow.

We had a think about what the plants needed to grow and how this could happen inside the hut (which has no windows).

“You could use the lights!” – Patrick

Skippy showed us the propagator and let Nathan and Lara feel the heat mat that keeps the seedlings warm and gives them light because the sun can’t do either inside.

The seedlings were kept warm on the heat mat and given light from the lamps.

Nathan applied his previous learning to what Skippy had shown and told us…

“Maybe the beanstalk will grow and have a castle at the top!” – Nathan

Skippy assured us that he hadn’t used magic beans so a castle was very unlikely. Then we went outside to see what was in the allotment, and what was growing.

Skippy showed us the leeks, chives, garlic and spring onions, and shallots that are all part of the onion family!

Skippy showed us where he had just cut up old flowers and scattered the cuttings. Seedlings were starting to grow.

Skippy showed us some of the vegetables he had started to grow in the greenhouse.

Skippy has started to grow tomatoes in the greenhouse too.

We saw an interesting green box at the end of a path…

We looked at the box and guessed what it might hold.

It was the allotment’s beehive!

Skippy told us how bees are essential for plants to grow.

“Without bees, nothing could live!” – Patrick

The bees get the stuff that they use to make honey, out of flowers.

We looked at some flowers to find the middle bit that the bees visit to collect nectar and get stuck with pollen. When the pollen from different flowers gets mixed up it allows new seeds to be formed – this is called pollination.

"The bees collect pollen from the flowers. — “The bees collect pollen from the flowers.

We looked for the middle bit of the flower to see where the pollen is for the bees to spread.

Skippy explained about why bees are important.

We pretended to be busy bees visiting the flowers getting covered in and spreading the pollen.

We tickled flowers pretending to be bees collecting nectar and spreading pollen

Busy bee Harmony gathering nectar to make honey and spreading pollen to make new plants!

Some of the middle yellow bits were extra special…

We tried to think what would be different about these flowers.

Skippy asked us to look closely at the middle bit of the flower.

The yellow middle will grow into strawberries!

The strawberries aren’t the only fruits growing in the allotment.

We looked closely at the plant to see tiny buds that will grow into raspberries.

We had a lot of thinking about seeds and how they grow, finding pollen and seedlings that have started to grow. However we hadn’t thought about how weeds and wild plants spread. The gardeners didn’t plant the chives in the path or the dandelions. We had a think about what moved them.

“The wind did it!” – Harmony

Skippy showed us where the seeds were formed in some plants and we helped spread some.

Skippy showed us where seeds can be found.

Skippy opened up some flowers to reveal the seeds.

Skippy demonstrated how wind helps to garden by spreading seeds.

Ellie acts like the wind to spread dandelion seeds.

Nathan helps spread dandelion seeds while practicing his counting with a dandelion clock.

Blowing dandelion clocks are a fun way to help your child count, think about more or less and learn about time language! The Mary Queen of Scots dandelion head popping rhyme is a good fine motor exercise, helping your child strengthen their finger muscles in preparation to write! The latter is more popular with gardeners 😉

All to soon it was time to return to the nursery, smarter little biologists.

Our visits to the allotment will continue throughout the growing season. We endeavour to get as many children to experience this as possible so your child should get a turn at some point.

chemistry

Thinking again

February 29, 2016 Ailie Rankin 1 Comment

So for Holly and indeed for anyone else, we revisited the toothpaste.

Revisiting learning and repeating activities and experiences helps us to process the information and deepen our learning.

This time around I focused more on letting the children take the lead and do as much as possible based on their last experience. As this was a repeat and more child led I didn’t bother with the logbooks.

Luckily we had a few re-visitors who could recall and share their experiences from Friday.

Again I tried to make this as hands on an experience as possible. Luckily the safety rules were firm in the children’s minds.

“Don’t touch the bottles! It’s dangerous!” – Gabriel

Ryan and Gabriel could both remember what we needed to do and what the reaction would be.

“We need the white stuff but it’s burny, and the smelly stuff to make it go up and over. ” – Ryan

So we measured out the yeast and took turns to mix…

We measured out the yeast powder in preparation for mixing it.

And we used those important hand muscles to add the washing up liquid.

And those pincer grips to squeeeeeeeeeeeeeze the yeast quickly into the hydrogen peroxide (the greater the force with which the yeast enters the mixture, the quicker the reaction).

And we weren’t disappointed in the reactions. In fact we did the experiment again and again and again using different colours.

The children grew in confidence with the foam and were able to notice it was hot.

“It’s like lava!” – Finlay F.

“But it looks like snow” – Adam

We noticed some of the mixtures went slower than others and so with a gloved hand I gave them a shake which really sped them up!

“Woah! Look at mine it’s going fast now!” – Nathan

“It got bigger!” – Elise

We repeated it so often we were left with lots of foam and it was lovely to play with (in fact we only stopped because we ran out of washing up liquid!)

“It’s all gooey looey!” – Finlay F.

And the colours all mixed again.

“This looks like a rainbow” – Ayvah

But Ryan used his knowledge of what we’d made to add to his observation..

“It’s like the elephant has already used all the toothpaste!” – Ryan D.

But the foam was perfect for mark making and writing secret spy messages! Great early writing practice.

The foam was perfect for writing and drawing.

The added opportunity to explore the process allowed Gabi to really add to her learning. She was able to explain what had happened to her friends…

“The yeast burned away the peroxide!” – Gabi

So a revisited experience but more learning all the same!

Sometimes it is worth thinking again.

chemistry

Elephant’s toothpaste in the main building

February 27, 2016 Ailie Rankin 1 Comment

After the excitement about the erruptions, explosions and gaseous experiences, I thought it only appropriate to revisit elephant’s toothpaste but this time with the main building children.

We used the same ingredients as last time.

Hydrogen peroxide, yeast, fairy liquid, washing up liquid, dye.

The same safety rules applied..

“No touching the bottles!” – Gabi

However, this time we added a little more of a hands on approach with the children using the droppers to add the yeast. This allows the children a level of responsibility (managing their own, all be it small, risk) which adds a level of engagement and greater involvement in the learning.

We used droppers, a beaker for the yeast mixture and a spoon for measuring and stirring.

There were a number of predictions in which the children applied knowledge gained from previous experiences….

"I predict that its going to right up to the roof and down!" — “I predict that its going to right up to the roof and down!”

“It’s going to besplode!!” – Heidi

"Its gonna overflow!" — “Its gonna overflow!”

Lara even used the correct vocabulary when making her prediction!!

“I predict it’ll go right up to the roof and back down” – Lara

But first we had to mix the yeast. This offered opportunity for the children to engage with real measure (of a spoonful) and counting the spoonfuls to add. They also had to take turns to mix the yeast as I deliberately only offered one spoon and one beaker.

Eilidh and Lily carefully measured out teaspoons of yeast powder into the beaker in preparation for mixing it to activate it.

We took turns to mix the yeast mixture. Ross and Isla revisited the experiment in the afternoon.

Lara, Olivia and Gabriel took turns to mix the yeast and water together to activate the yeast.

“Eeeuurgh it smells like a swamp or a dirty shoe!” – Ryan D.

Then we had to use those important hand muscles to squeeze the washing up liquid to the hydrogen peroxide that I had already poured into bottles.

We had to use our hand and finger muscles to squeeze the washing up liquid into our mixture.

We used washing up liquid to allow the gas to create bubbles and foam.

And so we were ready to add the yeast…

We used the droppers to add the yeast mixture safely.

Bramble focused and concentrated to squeeze all the yeast into the hydrogen peroxide quickly.

Caoimhe carefully added the yeast with the dropper.

And the results were quite good.

“Ross’s stayed the same but mine BESPLODED!!” – Heidi

"It was really really really foamy!" — “It was really really really foamy!”

We observed the experiment to monitor what happened.

The foam kept growing and growing. “It looks like a big ice cream!” – Patrick

Jude took a step back – unsure if it would explode!

Eilidh and and Lily explored the the texture of the foam with their hands as Ross and Eve mixed the yeast for the next batch.

We watched as the mixture grew and grew!

The mixture grew fast in some cases. “Look at mine – its overflowing!” – Isla

So why did it explode? We analysed the experiment..

“It was because we put too much yeast in” – Heidi

"It exploded because it made gas." — “It exploded because it made gas.”

Ross reported and shared what had happened. His remembering and discussing the bubble shows that he was thinking about it.

"First there was the bottle, then it all overflowed!" — “First there was the bottle, then it all overflowed!” – Ryan

The foam that it created was warm and harmless as the yeast had mixed with the hydrogen peroxide, burning all the peroxide away and releasing heat and oxygen which mixed with the washing up liquid to create the foam. Some of the mixtures needed a little help to get going so I gave them a little shake to mix them up and that worked a treat.

And of course the harmless foam was lovely for making patterns and marks (early writing) and exploring the colour mixing (yet more science)!

An said “We have a new colour now! Rainbow colour!”

James spent a long time investigating how the foam would drop from his hand on to his arm. He wanted to see how much he could pile up.

So what next?

Well Ryan gave us an excellent question to explore..

“What does disolve mean?” – Ryan

But the mixing of the coloured foam revealed another area to explore as the children created new colours.

“Look what colours I can make!” – James

And then I discovered Brandon’s interest in Angry Birds and thought about how we could explore forces further with catapults and towers…….hmmm

But Holly made it clear what we should do on Monday..

“Aww Ailie, I never saw the science today. Can we do it again on Monday?” – Holly

Well how could I resist? And I just so happen to have bought a stronger concentration of peroxide – I wonder what difference that will make?

Why not help me decide what direction to take after Monday? I will of course ask the children but please add your ideas too! Is there an experiment or science area you would like us to explore? Let me know!

In the meantime why not try to recreate some of these chemical reactions at home? You can buy hydrogen peroxide at Sally’s in the town and the yeast is available in the baking section of Tesco. Antibacterial washing up liquid doesn’t work so well so just go for the original kind, bubble bath works also.

Good luck and happy experimenting!

chemistry

Learning from Einstein

February 19, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

Einstein quote

I saw this as I was eating my breakfast this morning and thought how this totally sums up learning through play. And explains why today we revisited gas.

This morning we looked at gas with the more scientific frame of mind, attempting to create a gas by mixing a liquid and a powder. We caught and measured the gas in the balloons again.

As usual we made and recorded predictions, observations and our thinking about why it happened (training the mind to think!).

Only one person predicted their solution wouldn’t make a gas:

Natalie – “I predict no gas.”

Everyone else predicted lots of gas would be made.

Innes chose a tablet and vinegar and predicted "a big gas" — Innes chose a tablet and vinegar and predicted “a big gas”

Lucy chose to mix a tablet and bubble bath and predicted "a big bit of gas". — Lucy chose to mix a tablet and bubble bath and predicted “a big bit of gas”.

Pearce chose to mix a tablet and vinegar and predicted "lot's of gas". — Pearce chose to mix a tablet and vinegar and predicted “lot’s of gas”.

In fact Sophia and Olivia selected their ingredients based on their past experience with the science. When asked why they had selected bicarbonate of soda and vinegar,

Olivia replied: “Because it’s going to get bigger and explode!”

and Sophia said, “Because I want mine to get ginormous!”

So there were a variety of results depending on the combination chosen.

We had to wotk together to crush the tablets.

We squeezed the balloons to feel the gas.

Olivia pours her bicarbonate of soda from her balloon into the vinegar.

Gabriel was disappointed when his mixture of fizzy water and icing sugar made very little gas.

Patrick was able to set up his expeiment with very little help.

Ryan liked watching the bubbles fizz and make the gas.

Sophia’s mixture made a lot more gas than Isla’s

carbonated water and effervescent vitamin tablet.

“Oh my gosh Sophia! That is soooo big!” – Millie

The most interesting however was the bubble bath + effervescent tablet………

You could see the crushed tablet sink into the bubble bath.

The crushed tablet took a while to mix with the bubble bath so nothing happened for a while.

After a while it mixed and produced a little gas!

Gracie and Bramble were able to apply their previous science learning to their understanding of what had happened…

"We made a potion. It forced up lots and lots of gas and made the balloon bigger and bigger!" - Gracie — “We made a potion. It forced up lots and lots of gas and made the balloon bigger and bigger!” – Gracie

"The balloon goed bigger and bigger 'cause of the experiment gas!"- Bramble — “The balloon goed bigger and bigger ’cause of the experiment gas!”- Bramble

Smart cookies eh?!

For the afternoon session I took to heart another Einstein quote……

So we just freely “researched” compounds and mixtures.

We talked about what was happening and what we wished to add to our mixtures.

We had to use our hand and finger muscles to squeeze the ingredients out of the bottle – this helps us prepare to write!

And the phrases “Oh my gosh!” and “Look at mine!” were heard aplenty when the vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, effervescent tablets and carbonated water began to mix.

We used a huge amount of maths language as we were experimenting – “more” ,”less”, “after”, “next”,” first” ,”higher”, “heavier” ,”lighter” as well as hearning myself model more science vocabulary.

Did you know that the greater a child’s vocabulary before school, the more success they have in school? You can read research suggesting that here and here.

Also did you know that the average person produces gas 14 times a day? (Thought Patrick might like that wee fact!) Why not amuse your family with more fart facts?

I’m sure Einstein would have been very proud!

Don’t forget to share the learning that your child shares at home and leave comments to let me know what you think of the experiments and the blog – especially any ideas or suggestions – Thank you!

chemistry

balloons and gas

February 17, 2016 Ailie Rankin 4 Comments

Today we looked and at and thought about balloons and gas. This was a follow up to Isla’s fab question last time:

“What is gas?”

So we started with our balloon holding bicarbonate of soda on a bottle containing vinegar. We discussed what happened when we mixed these ingredients on Monday.

“The bottle fell over and it just fizzed a bit” – Alf

So the consensus of prediction was that the bottle would fall over.

The balloon inflated however, much to the children’s delight!

“Arrgh! It’s getting bigger! It’s going to explode!!” – Patrick

We squeezed and shook the balloon and bottle and thought about the bubbles (which were made by the gas) and we decided to investigate – could we make a gas?

“Yes!” – Daniel “It’ll be like a bomb and explode!” – Patrick

We had bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, effervescent tablets, carbonated water, bubble bath, conditioners, shaving foam, caster and icing sugars.

We discussed safety as usual:

“Wash hands after.” – Innes “Don’t pop the balloons!” – Alex

“Move if you think it’ll explode!” – Daniel

Again there was disagreement about how long it would take….

“25 hundred” – Daniel “Just a minute or 2” – Patrick

"It'll take THIS long" — “It’ll take THIS long”

We mixed various ingredients and had a variety of results:

“It grew bigger and bigger and exploded like a bomb! It was going EVERYWHERE!” “It was because of the gas” – Patrick

“Look at mine! It’s like lava but it’s not hot!”

In the afternoon I structured it so that we were much more scientifically looking at the gas first. The children could choose what to mix and predict if it would make a gas to inflate the balloon or not.

"It might melt our eyes!" — “It might melt our eyes!”

It fizzed and bubbled out from under the lid.

It was not good, not enough gas” – Finn

"I'm scared it'll blow up" — “I’m scared it’ll blow up”

“It was small”- Belle

“It looks like a rocket” – Isla C.

"It just made a little gas." — “It just made a little gas.”

Sophia gave us the quote of the day………

“I am OBSESSED with all this gas! It’s like a hundred billion! It’s amazing!” “How much gas are you making????”

Our star scientist award has to go to Fraser though. He was one of the first to join the experiment and nearly the last to leave at the end of the morning. He quickly realised which ingredients gave the best fizzy results and experimented with differing amounts in various containers. He really focused on developing his learning about chemical reaction and gas! Well done Fraser!

Why not have a go at some mad mixing at home to create gases and explosions? Any household and kitchen ingredients could combine to make an interesting and possibly smelly concoction! Our fizzy favourites have to be the vinegar+ bicarbonate of soda or the carbonated water + effervescent tablets + bubble bath. Let us know how you get on, share any cool pictures or results.

And remember you can find lots of science ideas on our pinterest page.

Happy experimenting!

Campus, chemistry

Christmas Science

January 30, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

At christmas time the learning continued (you may have noticed the onset of the season in some of the previous posts’ pictures).

It was only right that the science that we explored be linked to not only the previous sessions but also the festivities – helping us all to apply the learning in a meaningful context.

Building on our observations of the changing state of the foam from the Elephant’s toothpaste, we looked at changing states again but of sugar, in the form of candy canes.

We considered what happens to candy when you leave it in your mouth for a wee while. Then considered the results of different solutions – hot water, cold water, carbonated water, vinegar or oil.

The previous experiences influenced our predictions.

Put it in vinegar - it'll make bubbles. — Put it in vinegar – it’ll make bubbles.

"I think it's going to make rain!" — “I think it’s going to make rain!”

"It's going to be bright like a sun!" — “It’s going to be bright like a sun!”

"They will go red"[the liquids] "Carbonated water first, vinegar last" — “They will go red”[the liquids] “Carbonated water first, vinegar last”

So Matthew guessed the differences in the liquids would affect the candy canes the same way but over different times, most children predicted the candy canes would react the same way in all the solutions. But Mathew was closest.

We think and talk about our predictions.

We popped one candy cane each into testubes of different solutions.

We ran out of candy canes for the afternoon so had to check the pieces we used were about the same size.

We wanted to have ownership of the different test tubes in the afternoon so we could almost make it a competition!

We took notes and recorded our findings.

The solutions in some of the test tubes began to change

We lifted the canes up and out every now and again to check on them.

We agitated the mixture by shaking it to see if it changed the process.

Some of the candy canes had gotten a lot thinner! They had disolved!

“It’s snapped! The hot water one broke!”

We laid the left over canes out side by side so that we could compare them more easily.

The canes had changed a lot, they were quite different.

We talked about what we thought had happened.

The hot water seemed to have had the most effect.

The candy cane that had been in the hot water had almost disolved completely. The oil one hadn’t changed at all.

“The oil one will never change” Ramsay

We were quite intrigued about the differences and the disolving and so we came up with ideas of other things we could try the candy canes in.

Emily chose milk and predicted. “It’ll turn the milk pink”

It did but the cane hardly disolved in the time it took hot water to work.

Eilidh chose bubble bath and predicted a pink cloud.

We used lots of descriptive and comparative language when we looked at more than one test tube.

Erin tried orange juice and predicted a change in colour.

“A cloud! A cloud! It’s making a wee pink cloud!”

Only Emily’s disolved in any noticable way, although they were all very very sticky which suggest the process started with them all in some way.

So now we know: sugar disolves in water but not oil, and the temperature of the water can speed up or slow down the process.

We also know science doesn’t need to stop at Christmas! You can always investigate H2Ho Ho Ho!

(Too far?)

For more easy science why not check out Pinterest.

Or Happy Hooligans has some fun ideas also.

Don’t forget to leave a comment or share your experiment and learning with us!

Happy experimenting

Campus, weather

How does it rain?

January 27, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

Well after our success with making a cloud we just had to think about why some clouds rained and why others didn’t?

So we conducted an experiment to investigate this.

We hypothesised it was about the quantity of water the cloud had soaked up, and recorded these in our science logbook.

Daniel recorded that he predicted clouds needed more water to make rain.

Alex predicted that the cloud with less water would make rain.

So we set up our experiment….

We started with a tub of plain water to represent the air.

We squirted shaving foam on top to be the cloud.

The foam floated on top of the water, like a cloud hanging in the sky.

We used dropper s to pick up and drop blue food colouring onto the foam.

We used blue colouring to pretend it was water in the clouds. The dye meant we could see what happened to it. We added a tiny bit to one and a lot more to another.

We looked closely through the magnifying glasses.

We talked about what we thought was happening. One cloud had made rain!

We looked again. Daniel and Alex added more dye to see what would happen.

The clouds with lots of dye ‘water’ rained for a while.

We recorded our findings in our logbook.

Natalie recorded that the large cloud stayed the same when the little cloud let rain through

Rebekah recorded the rain falling from the cloud.

So clouds with lots of water are the ones that make rain. If a cloud only has a little water, it doesn’t. Lots of water is heavier than a little water so the water falls down when there is enough in the cloud to be heavy, but big clouds need more water to become too heavy and rain.

But we didn’t stop there. Chloe and Amelia wanted to see if they could speed things up by mixing the cloud (foam) and (water) air.

Investigating best stirring implement – glue spreader or paint brush?

“I’m going to make mine sparkly like Elsa”.

That got us thinking about potions and mixing – what could we add to what? Would different things happen? Hmmmm.

Campus, weather

The afternoon Campus children were interested too……

January 25, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

But the weather had changed! It had rained, so that led us to think about where the rain comes from?

Chloe: “The clouds – it falls out the clouds.”

The rain made puddles, and came from the clouds but how did it get into the clouds?

So a cloud is made of water that has evaporated (turned into a gas)from a source of water like a puddle or river or sea.Then it has gotten cold again and condensed (turned back into tiny wee water droplets) sticking onto miniscule bits of dirty air.

You can make a cloud too!

All you need is: