Year 5 and Year 6 Science

Science 2019-2020

Earth and Space

Year 5 and Year 6 have been learning about the phases of the moon this term. We looked at the different shapes that the moon appears in the sky and worked out a formula to tell if they’re ‘Waxing’ (growing bigger) or ‘Waning’ (growing smaller) . We then tried to find out why sometimes we can’t see the moon at all in the sky. The children learned that the moon hasn’t really disappeared but is just between us and the sun so we can only see its dark side. The children learned a song to help us remember all eight phases then used their knowledge to create their own moon phase art. We think they look out of this world !

Properties and Changing of Materials

Last week we looked at different materials and thought about their properties. We discovered that materials are chosen for particular products and jobs because of their properties.

This week we started to think about special properties of materials. We investigated whether some solids were soluble or insoluble (dissolved or not).

We tested lots of different solids including gravy, rice and sugar.

Next, we thought about factors affecting dissolving. The children came up with lots of ideas such as temperature, number of stirs, speed of stirring and size of particles.

I demonstrated, with the help of the children, how temperature affected the rate of dissolving. We created a line graph of the results.

Science 2018-2019

Circuits and Electricity

Children in Upper Key Stage 2 have learnt about several ideas relating to electricity this half term. They are able to draw simple circuit diagrams and label them. They are also aware of the history of the discovery of electricity, electric current and voltage.

This week the children conducted an experiment to explore the following question:

What effects do differing voltages have on a electrical component in a circuit?

The children tested how changing the voltage affected motors and bulbs in a complete circuit.