Good morning,
Next half term, our unit in Science (every Thursday afternoon) will be separating materials and mixtures. Thinking ahead, there will be some lessons that will be mostly teacher demonstrated, however, there are opportunities for your child to conduct the same experiments at home, if they wish to. They will simply need to follow my instructions in the live lesson and conduct their own investigation alongside mine. There will also be some lessons in which your child will need some basic household items and it is important that they take part in these, so they can see and explore the investigations first-hand.
In order to prepare for this, I have outlined each lesson and identified underneath when these investigations are optional or compulsory and what items you will need.
Lesson 1 – Properties of Materials
•Your child will be exploring different properties of materials including flexibility, texture and hardness. One of the areas they can explore is magneticity. If you have magnets on your fridge or radiators, your child can use those. If you do not have magnets in your home, your child will have to leave this part of the experiment and complete the rest.
Lesson 2 – Thermal Conductors and Insulators
•In this lesson, we will be looking at materials that keep food cool. You will need some ice so please prepare this in advance. If you have ice cube trays, these can simply be filled with water and left overnight in the freezer. If you do not have these in your house, please fill a bowl or cup with water and leave it in your freezer overnight. Before the lesson, place a tea towel over the bowl to stop any fly-away ice flakes whilst you break up the ice into chunks.
•You will also need containers. These can be empty bottles, cups or mugs. If they can be roughly the same size and made of the same material (e.g. all plastic or all glass), this would make your child's test fair and accurate. If this is not possible, please just do the best you can.
Lesson 3 - Dissolving
•This experiment will be demonstrated by the class teacher.
•However, if your child would like to take part in their own investigation alongside mine, they will need the following items: flour, rice, coffee granules, sugar, salt and gravy granules.
Lesson 4 – Separating Mixtures
•Most of this will be done through teacher demonstration.
•However, if your child would like to conduct their own investigation, they will need: salt mixed in water, raisins mixed in flour and a sieve.
Lesson 5 – Irreversible Changes
•Your child needs to take part in this experiment to see an irreversible change for themselves. You will need milk and vinegar.
If you are unsure of anything regarding this half term's Science lessons, or need clarification on any of the above information, please drop me an email on e.blenkin@maltonprimary.org and I will reply as quickly as possible.
If we return to school in a few weeks time, your child will not need to bring in these items. This is just in case we are expected to continue with remote learning for longer than expected.
This information is also available on our Seesaw page to refer back to whenever needed.
Thank you for your continue support,
Miss Blenkin
