Year 4

Miss Manly is running an after school science club with some Year 4 children. After all of the sessions, the children will earn a very special award, Science Crest Award.

Session 10 - Journey Stick

Children made their own journey sticks by attaching items they found on their walk through our lovely Forest School.

Session 9 - Sticky Problems (over to you)

The children read 2 newspaper articles about different inventions. One invention was a mistake and resulted in what we know as Post-it notes (the glue was supposed to stick). Another invention was inspired by the gecko and was a sticky tape which could hold up huge weights up-side-down. the children had to work in groups and come up with their own ideas of how to use these 2 sticky substances.

Session 8 - Disappearing Dinosaurs

This started with a discussion about dinosaurs and we explored what the children knew. We discussed ideas about how they became extinct. The children then carried on further research looking at all of the different ideas and evaluated the evidence coming up with their thoughts on how dinosaurs died. Some thought it was an earthquake (some thinking caused by a meteor), others thought a volcanic eruption. It was interesting to find out more about this topic.

Session 7 - Racing Rockets

This task was about finding out the best size and shape for a rocket. The children used straws, paper, glue and sticky tape to make the rocket and its launcher.

Session 6 - A Sticky Problem (making glue)

We read a reader letter to a science magazine about a child who wanted to find out the best glue to make her go-kart. We made 3 types of glue using different ingredients and had to test them considering different points: how sticky was the glue when dry? How sticky was the glue if wet? Would the glue wash out of clothes? We carried out our own tests to find out.

Session 5 - Fluoride: Good or bad?

The children were introduced to extracts from the Diary of Dr Frederick McKay in the early 20th century. It discussed an issue with people who had brown stains on their teeth. He said the believed there to be a link between the brown stains and fluoride. He also suggested that those with the stains were less likely to get tooth decay. The children researched more information and made their own decisions about whether or not fluoride should be added to water. They created posters to display their information.

Session 4 - Investigating Ink (The Dognapper)

We read an article about a prize-winning cocker spaniel being dognapped and, as we had already had a session investigating ink, we were asked to look at the ransom note. The note had gotten a little wet in the rain and we noticed that the ink had spread on the paper and started to separate into different colours. We had also been given a selection of pens belonging to some of the suspects in the case. The children set about testing each pen using chromatography on filter papers. This helped them to narrow down the suspects but it was not really conclusive and so we then tested on white paper towels. Again, this narrowed down the suspects to a final two. Eventually, the children decided to test the actual paper with the final 2 pens. This worked. The results were definitely conclusive.

Session 3 - Super Spinners

The children were given a challenge to find out of the size of blades would make a difference to a helicopter. The children had a template to create a spinner which mimicked a helicopter. They then used that design to create difference sized spinners with difference sized blades. We found out that the larger bladed spinner did spin slower and took longer to fall to the ground due to air resistance.

Session 2 - Finger Prints

The children were given the challenge to find out if our fingerprints really are all different. They looked at their own fingerprints using special phonoscopes and then tested different powders to find out which would work best to take our fingerprints. They even managed to lift fingerprints from a plastic sheet onto paper. They all had great fun.