Science | Warren Farm Primary School

Science

Our new topic this term is 'Living Things'. Check out all our work from this topic so far.

Our first topic in Science is ‘Uses of Everyday Materials’. This unit will teach children about the uses of everyday materials including wood, plastic, metal, glass, brick, paper and cardboard. Children will compare the suitability of different everyday materials for different purposes. They will list properties of different materials such as hardness, strength, flexibility and shininess. Following this, children will learn that the properties of materials are important to the object they are made from. Children will also identify suitable and unsuitable materials for different objects and will be able to explain why.

In our first lesson, children explored the different types of materials in our playground and around our school. We then discussed the properties of the material and why the material was a good choice.

Pictures of children's work to follow.

We went on a material hunt around our school.

Children completed a KWL grid at the beginning of our topic. This included what children knew about materials (prior knowledge), what children want to know about materials and what children have learnt (to be completed at the end of the unit).

We looked through magazines and identified same objects made from different materials. We discussed the suitability of the choices of materials.

We discussed and explored the process of recycling. We spoke about why it was useful to recycle. In groups, children shared out different types of rubbish and shared them amongst the following categories: compost, paper and card, plastic, glass, reusable items, clothes, waste services and cans.

We then spoke about the recycling sequence. We researched the process of changing a plastic bottle into a plastic bag.

We explored absorbency. In our investigation we tested to see which materials absorbed the most water. Below shows our investigation.

We also conducted an investigation on waterproof materials.