Holiday Science Fun

Am planning to try this out with my niece and nephews. ( 5,7,9)

I bought these tiny rainbow beads online - (you can also use the silica beads that come with trainers ) a couple of pounds for thousands of them.

All you need to do is pop them into a container of water

These have been in for a couple of hours.

Simple activities can include counting , how many different colours, holding the container up to the light.

Pop a hand in:

How many am I holding? Two?

Fabulous! The clear beads are so difficult to see when in the water. Lots of fun to try to guess how many there are and then take out one by one.

Further activities can include timing how long they take to grow, if different colours take more or less time. Can also see how long they take to return to normal size.

How about trying a salt solution? Or pop some food colouring in.

Lots of potential for measuring , weighing and if you have a torch handy see how the light is refracted by the spheres. See what happens if you hold one above some writing.

If you've tried this, let me know how it goes.

**Important** don't throw these down the drain when finished with..they can be dried and reused over and over . If they must be thrown away they'll need to go in the general household waste.

Have fun!

Drama and Science

Since moving into Year 6 I have been determined to give the children plenty of opportunities for creativity. This has always been high on the agenda, but with new curriculum and assessments it has become even more important.

These are some of the most successful activities I have carried out so far this year.
Please try them out and feedback. I will endeavour to take photos next time so that I can include them. We were too carried away with what we were doing to remember to take photos!

1) The circulatory system.

I did this with my whole class as I am lucky to have a very small group of 20. With a larger class I would split it as follows:

2 children- lungs. Holding a container with red counters (or similar)

2 children heart- could make a 'bridge'

2 children- body. Holding a container with blue counters (or similar)


Rest of group- blood cells, start off at body with blue counters.

Children process round the body, through the heart, to the lungs where the counter is swapped to show the exchange of gases, back to the heart, round the body where the blood becomes de- oxygenated, back to the heart and so on.

Could have a couple of children beating out a rhythm on drums, or play a suitable tune to keep in time too (I especially like Mr Parr's heart song which you can find  here   or  for lots of others click here )

2) Pollination 

Again this can be done with the whole class or groups. No fancy equipment needed, just some space.

Some children- flowers- they need yellow counters/stickers etc. to act as pollen

Fewer children- bees/butterflies (or bats if you have been looking at a range of pollinators!)

Pollinators move from flower to flower, collecting and depositing the 'pollen' as they travel. This demonstrates how pollination occurs.

3) Electrical circuits

All you need is a group of children and a piece of thick cord long enough for everyone to hold when it is in a loop.

The loop is held gently by all (health and safety not to grip too tight to avoid burns)
One (or more) act as the cell and gently pull the cord to demonstrate the flow of electrons in a circuit. The more cells, the more energy . The fewer cells, the lesser the amount of energy.
The others can demonstrate resistance by holding onto the cord more tightly; this makes it harder to move the cord round the circle. If the cord is cut, the circuit is broken and the energy cannot flow all the way around.

4) Not so much drama as freeze framing . Light

Groups of children use string/wool to show the path of light from source to eye . For example one child acts as light source, string goes to object (child two) and then to observer (child 3) . This can help to show how light travels in one continuous line that is reflected from the object to the eye.
 Other groups can then narrate the path of the light.