Science Week at Oakfield!!

There was such a buzz around school as the children, staff and volunteers immersed themselves in all things science.

Parents braved the weather on Wednesday evening to take part in a science workshop, brilliantly led by Mrs Anne Bunce, a leading science teacher and science consultant for the Royal Borough. This was very well received by the parents who went home inspired and full of ideas of how to support their children at home.  Please find a link to a presentation from the evening.

All the children were treated to an exciting performance of ‘Octopushy’, the science of pushes and pulls, on Thursday morning by the Quantum Theatre group.

Please enjoy browsing through the photographs below which will give you a flavour of the science ‘adventures’ the children experienced.
 

Food Glorious Food - The Secret Science of Cooking.
In Birch class they had great fun investigating a very common ingredient used to make bread.

That’s right; they were looking at yeast!

Yeast is a living microorganism made up of only a single cell – humans are multicellular organisms, this means that we are made up of lots of cells. They learned that in the right conditions, yeast will feed on sugar and produce a gas called carbon dioxide. During their experiment, they set out to discover which conditions yeast liked best by changing the temperature of the water.

Can you remember how you measured which temperature it liked best?
 
You can find some more information about other microorganisms by following the link below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/science/living_things/microorganisms/read/1/
 
 
Rise and Fall – Investigating Floating and Sinking
This promised to be a wet session and it didn’t disappoint!

The children had super fun testing different objects made from different materials to see whether they floated or sank?

The best way to learn science – hands on

One of our wonderful parent volunteers helping the children discover the wonders of science  



‘Will it float or sink?’

Good Vibrations – The Science of Sound
In Cherry Class the world famous stage show Stomp was the inspiration behind their session.
Through numerous tests the children learned how sound was made. They discovered that the human ear is a perfectly designed ‘sound catcher’ and learned how our ears hear.
 
Feeling the vibrations move up through the fork and string and ‘tickle’ our fingers.

The Dancing Pieces of Paper. What was happening here?

‘Hello is anyone there?’

The second half of the session combined science and music and using what they had learned the children made their very own musical instruments and put on their own performance of Stomp.

The ‘West End’ here we come!!

Science Week or auditions for Britain’s Got Talent?

Chestnut Class – Fabulous Forensics

In Chestnut Class they had been having a terrible problem of things going missing!  Naughty adults have been stealing Miss Hill’s not-so-secret stash of her favourite biscuits! 
 
Fortunately, the children were amazing at studying all the evidence and helped to find the petty pilferers ...
 
... and had a lot of fun along the way, becoming experts at fingerprints, learning how to identify pens using chromatography and a cunning way of testing what’s on the bottom of each suspect’s shoes...They know exactly WHO DUNNIT!

Up, Up and Away – Forces and Rockets
In Holly Class the children had great fun making all sorts of marvellous rockets.
First they watched video footage of a Space Shuttle taking off and then watched the first landing of man on the moon. These video clips stimulated many questions so they had a short discussion about these and used the internet and books to answer their questions.

Even a little rain didn’t stop this group from getting outside and testing out their film canister rockets. Whose rocket went the highest?

Mysteries of the Miniature – Playing with microscopes

Have you ever wondered what the skin of an onion really looked like, close up? Well in Sycamore the children got the opportunity to find out. They used microscopes (very exciting) to carefully examine onion skins and crystals close up.

Eye spy with my little eye

Abracadabra - The Magic of Science

Well we did think that Miss Garius was going to make a rabbit appear from a top hat but the ‘magic’ the children saw was much more exciting than that!

Our lady scientists trying to figure out what was happening!