Let there be Light!

This week we finished off our lessons about light and colour.  Some of the Year 6 classes finished making their colour spinners and I was surprised at how much they enjoyed playing around with the colours to see what would happen.  Following the simple pattern from a website they were easily able to divide the circle into segments and then attached their paper to an old CD.  Using a hot glue gun, they then glued a marble into the centre.

We then learnt about refraction and did a few experiments using a glass of water and different objects.

After sharing our ideas, the boys then explored what happens when light travels through convex and concave lenses.  It was a sunny day, and boys being boys, a couple of them just couldn't help themselves with a lens, some sunlight and some paper...  Needless to say, we didn't want the smoke alarms going off and didn't want to encourage anything that could lead to a fire!

This week in the Science Room

This week was the last session for Year One.  They got to finish painting their air dry clay peg labels, finish constructing their rubberband powered boats and finish a little assessment task all about which objects float and which objects sink.

It certainly was a busy day in the science room.

This week also saw some of Year Six come down and experiment with light and shadows.  A darkened room, a torch, a couple of mirrors and suddenly there's plenty of fun to be had.  We looked at how light travels, reflection, refraction and the visible spectrum.  The class were then given a challenge to hit a target using a $2 shop laser pointer.  The challenge was that the laser beam had to be reflected three times before it could hit the target!

Fortunately, the weather stayed fine so the Year Five classes were able to get back out into the stream for some testing.  The boys learnt how to measure the stream velocity using a table tennis ball, a length of string and a stopwatch.  They also all learnt how to take a quadrat count.  We didn't have a lot of extra time so instead of measuring out a square metre, each group used a plastic hoop from the PE shed.  This was a nice, simple way of marking out a space to count the objects inside a perimeter.

This week in the Science Room

Look what I found waiting for me on my desk on Monday morning!

Just fantastic!  Thanks Jude.  I love it when boys bring in and share something that they have found interesting about their world around them.

The Year Six classes have started their sessions on looking at light and colour. We found out about the visible spectrum (and the electromagnetic spectrum). We experimented with torches and making shadows, how to change the size of them and the different sources of light.  We did some experiments that looked at how light travels and then we had some fun using $2 shop laser pointers and mirrors.  Each group had to reflect their laser beam using the mirrors and then hit their target pinned to the walls.  Great fun and they certainly learnt about how light travels!

Year Five were fortunate enough to start their stream study yesterday and today before the wet weather arrived.  Both classes were given the opportunity to explore and have a good look in and around our stream.  How lucky are we that we have streams bordering both sides of our school!  The boys really enjoyed lifting the rocks and a few managed to spot a few eels, fish, spiders and flying insects.

After our play and explore, we then spent some quiet time taking a closer look at our stream and sketching the path of our stream, noting the width of the stream and how shady and sunny the different parts are.

Then this afternoon we started putting together our new 3D printer! Stay tuned for further updates on the building of it...

Year Two's Physical World

Throughout term two, the junior school has been exploring some physical world units.  Year Two completed an investigation into light and colour.  Boys bought along to school their own torches and we had lots of fun making the classroom dark so that we could explore light.  We talked about where light comes from, how it travels and then we did lots of activities with our torches.

 The year 2 class explored a range of materials to see if they were opaque, transparent or translucent.  They were then able to sort their objects into appropriate groups.

By far the most fun was making shadows and exploring how to make them bigger and smaller.  We even went outside and the boys paired up and drew around their own shadows.

Year Two had lots of fun exploring with magnifying glasses, we looked at the shape of different lenses and what happens when we put them close to our eyes, further away.  We talked about how useful magnifiers are and what people might use them for.