Popping popcorn

How do we make popcorn?

How does it turn from hard little kernels into white puffy balls?

We put a little bit of oil and a small amount of the kernels into the popcorn maker. It whirled them around and made them very hot. When they got too hot the kernels started to pop!!! (you can see our excitement)

When we looked closely at them cooking, we could see them bursting and when we looked closely at the popped popcorn we could see the hard kernel.

It was a yummy experiment J

We are scientists

Our science investigations continue:

Firstly, we made predictions about what would happen if we mixed milk, food colouring and dish washing liquid. Lots of the children thought it would (or hoped it would) explode.













We watched very carefully as the food colouring sat in the milk and then scattered when the dish washing liquid was added. There were lots of oohs and aahhhs echoing around the room.

The next day, we thought about what would happen if we mixed water, oil, food colouring and salt, once again the hope of an explosion was high on the list of predictions!

The results were exciting and provoked lots of thoughtful discussion; why didn't the oil mix? What does the salt do? Why do the colour blobs float to the top?

You might want to try this at home by yourself, just add 1/2 cup of water, 1/2 cup of oil, a few drops of food colouring and finally a 1/4 cup of salt. The results are quite cool!

Walking water

"Can you make water walk between one jar into another? " I asked Room3.

As we are being good scientists, the children discussed this question and guessed what would happen. They all agreed that unless I poured the water from one jar to the other, it wasn't a possibility.

So we set up our experiment and waited.

As we watched we cold see the paper towels absorbing up the coloured water. It crept along the paper towels towards the empty jar.

Until eventually it started to dribble into the empty jar.

What busy boys

I just had to share this photo, the boys had been very busy working together and were so very proud of  create this awesome castle. They were all very proud of their efforts :)

Building a bridge for The Gingerbread Man

We have been reading the Gingerbread Man this week and linking it to our school wide science o swim focus.
Firstly, we thought about what would happen if the gingerbread man tried to swim across the river, the children made predictions, would he sink? float? melt? fall apart? or successfully make it across?
Once our predictions had been made we conducted our experiment to see what would happen. The Gingerbread we had initially floated but after he was in the water for a while started to get very soggy!

Our next task was to build a bridge for the Gingerbread man. The children were given toothpicks, mini marshmallows and the challenge- can they build a bridge that would hold the Gingerbread man?

There were some very interesting bridges built and a range of successes but it was great to listen to them thinking through this problem, figuring it out and discussing what would work.

 I am sure you will agree the learning is clear to see in these photos:

Welcome back!

Welcome back to school everyone. It was lovely to come back and see all the special smiles and happy faces of the Room 3 children. I did miss them and enjoyed hearing about the fun times they have had over the school holidays.

We have got a lot planned this term with our special focus being science. There will be plenty of opportunities for the children to participate in experiments and to discover new things. I am looking forward to sharing this learning with you. Watch this space!!!

Our letter of the week work continues; here we all are at the end of last term wearing our special s crowns, what a smart looking class we have :)

Team assembly

We had a team assembly at the end of last term, Room 4 shared some of their fantastic art work and Room 1 shared some great photos of some of the exciting things they have been doing throughout the term. Then we had special values certificates, recognising and applauding children that had shown the value of respect.

It was a lovely time for all the year1 classes to get together.