British Science Week at Playbox
This week we are celebrating British Science Week. We will be taking part in a variety of different science experiments around the theme exploration and discovery. When we have completed all of our experiments each of the children will receive an Early Years Explorer Award.
Our first experiment was the Escape From Ice experiment. The children went into the garden to find the tuff spot full of pipettes, hammers, ice blocks and some mysterious parcels. Hidden inside the parcels were blocks of ice with a small toy inside. The children had to use the tools available to free the dinosaur or insect from the ice. Initially the children used hammers to tap the ice to try and break it. They then suggested that we melt the ice using warm water. The children worked as a team to move the warm water from the jug onto their ice blocks using the large pipettes whilst using the small hammers to hit the ice and break it into smaller pieces. The children talked about where ice comes from, freezing and melting and practised their team work and motor skills during this experiment.
Our second experiment was Bug Hotels. The children read stories such as What The Ladybird Heard, First Day At Bug School and Mad About Mini beasts to give them some inspiration on how to design their hotels and what sort of habitat different bugs would need. They were given plant pots and a pot of sugar to use and searched the garden for a variety of natural objects (twigs, leaves, stones); they arranged the objects in plant pots to create a number of hotels for local bugs to stay in. The children then chose the perfect location for their hotels, some were positioned in the forest library and others were placed in the big back garden near the music wall. The children also searched for bugs and hoped to encourage them to stay at Playbox’s Bug Hotels. The hotels offer free overnight accommodation to all bugs and nice sugary meals are provided three times per day. We have left the hotels in their positions and will look tomorrow to see if any guests have checked in.
Our third experiment was Ocean In A Bottle. The children read Commotion In The Ocean and talked about oceans, who lived in there and what the word ocean meant. The children were given a large bottle, some vegetable oil, water, blue food colouring, some glitter, sand and a toy seahorse. They half filled the bottle with water using the funnel, used the large pipettes to add a few drops of blue food colouring before adding glitter and vegetable oil to the bottle. The children noted that the oil and the water didn’t mix together. They then added a toy seahorse to the bottle and closed the lid. The adults tipped the bottle onto it’s side and gave it a shake, this made waves in the bottle and made the seahorse inside dance. The children noticed that the oil had made the seahorse inside float. They were keen to continue talking about sinking and floating and set about collecting a variety of other objects to see if they would float in a bowl of water.
Our final experiment of the week was Giant Bubbles. The children helped to make the bubble mixture using corn flour, water, glycerine, washing up liquid and baking soda. They carefully mixed the ingredients together and then left the mixture to rest for an hour. When the mixture was ready the children took it into the garden where scissors, string and some straws were available. They used the resources to create their own bubble wands. The children then dipped their bubble wands into the bubble mixture. It took a few attempts at different style wands and trial and error with how hard to blow the mixture before the children were able to create their own giant bubbles. When they were successful they were excited to see how big they could blow their bubbles and the different shaped bubbles that they could make.
Once the children had completed all of the experiments they received the Early Years Explorer award. We are really proud of all of our little scientists.
The children (and adults) have really enjoyed taking part in the experiments this week and have asked to do some more experiments in the future. If you would like more information or if you would to have a go at any of the experiments we are doing this week they can be found here.
