Science
Summer Term
https://www.burnley.ac.uk/burnley-science-technology-festival
Outdoor activities
- Take a walk in nature. Make a collection of things you find. Once home, display them and see if you can identify them. Nature Detectives has some great ‘spotter sheets’ which might help.
- Plant some vegetables to grow at home. How can you keep them healthy? Once grown, can you use them in your cooking? Easy ones to grow for younger children are lettuce varieties, cress, radish or basil and mint herbs.
- Have a family sunflower competition. Who can keep their plan healthy and grow the tallest sunflower? Keep a diary of how much it grows each day.
Other activities you could do with your child
- Make a marble run. How long can you keep the marble moving for?
- Take a ‘Science Selfie’. Take a photograph of themselves with something science related in the image. Print off the photograph and complete the caption ‘This is science because…’ Make a collection of ‘Science Selfies’ to show how science is all around us.
- With an adult for guidance, experiment with cooking and food preparation. Make cakes and discuss what they notice at each stage of the recipe. Try this experiment to see how oven temperature affects cake mix: Make some cake mixture and place in 15 separate muffin cases. Put all the muffins in the oven then after every minute remove one from the oven until all 15 have been removed. Which is the best cake? Why? What do you notice? Mix up the cake order and see if you can put them back in the correct order.
- Try making some healthier snacks. Try super-seed energy balls, homemade granola, hummus with veg sticks. Explore online for some great ideas.
- Make a den, inside or out. Explain what materials you used and why your den is good?
- Research a famous scientist. What did they discover? How is their idea used today?
- What is the best way to stop ice cubes (or an ice lolly) from melting? Suggest 3 different things, test them and see which ice cube lasted longest. For younger children change where they put the ice cubes. For older children change the material they wrap the ice in (testing thermal insulators).
Useful websites
EYFS/KS1/KS2: https://www.rigb.org/families/experimental ExpeRimental is a series of short films making it fun, easy and cheap to do science experiments at home with your children. The films depict the age of the children for which the experiments are suitable.
KS2: https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.com/resources/challenge-cards.html Dyson engineers have designed these challenges specifically for children. Ideal for home or in the classroom, they encourage inquisitive young minds to get excited about engineering.
EYFS/KS1: https://naturedetectives.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/activities/ Free, downloadable materials to support being nature detectives in the outdoors
Families working together: https://seerih-innovations.org/science4families/
For more science experiments try https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/
https://www.thenational.academy/online-classroom/subjects/#subjects