Teaching And Home Schooling Ideas

 Make a rainbow. You will need a tray, a mirror, a torch and white paper. Fill the tray half full of water and place the mirror into the water at an angle. Shine the torch into the water at the mirror. Hold the white paper above and you will see a rainbow on the paper. You might need to move the paper until you catch the rainbow.  You can talk about how the light is refracted by the water. The light is made up of colours that break up when the light passes through a substance such as water that bends the light. The light is shone into the water and bounces off the mirror and comes back to us broken up into the colour particles due to the water. 

With the freezing temperatures at night we tried a fun nature activity. On our daily walk we collected some nature items eg leaves, berries, seed heads.  Just be careful if collecting with little ones as some berries, seeds and leaves could be poisonous.  We put them in a tub, then added water and a piece of string we had tied into a loop. Then we placed the tub outside over night to freeze.  This is a fun way to talk about what happens to water in cold/freezing temperatures and then what happens when the sun shines. Talk about water being a liquid and freezing to become a solid/ice when the temperature is below 0, then when heat/sunshine is applied the ice melts back to a liquid. In the morning we hung our ice decorations in the tree. They looked lovely shining in the sunlight as they melted.  We were inspired by mud and bloom on Instagram. 

Thomas wanted to melt some wax crayons, which we have done before. You will need  *wax crayons (we took the paper off the crayons.)  *cardboard *heat source - hairdryer We stuck the crayons onto cardboard. Then we switched on the hairdryer to hot and directed the heat at the crayons.  After we discussed..  What happened to the crayons?  They melted.  Why?  Heat was applied.  Then what happened when the heat stopped? The wax went hard, solidified.  What change occurred?  They started as a solid, became a liquid when heat applied, then returned to a solid.  A physical change, that is reversible.  Before we started we noticed that some of our crayons had changed shape, we realised this was due to the heat of the sun as the container was near the window. So you could discuss this. 

Make a mini raft to float. We got some twigs of a similar length. We bound them together with string. Added a twig for the mast and a leaf for the sail. We put the raft in the Beck to see if it would float and it did. If you don't live near a Beck or stream then you can float it in the sink or bath. If you have a group of children they can work together or make individual rafts.

We got lots of food from our pantry and sorted into healthy and unhealthy groups, with a few going in the centre as they could be both. Thomas felt that flour could be unhealthy as makes cakes but I said it could also make bread. Also felt meat could be both eg tin of corn beef. We cut out food pictures from a supermarket magazine and stuck them into different categories - healthy, unhealthy, balanced meal/could be both healthy or unhealthy.

Whilst the weather was hot and we had the paddling pool out we decided to predict and test which items float and sink. Draw a table and write a list of some items to test. We picked a pebble, plastic bottle, flat foil, scrunched foil, leaf, twig, conker, glass bottle, football, old pen and wet swimming trunks! Firstly we predicted if they would float or sink, then we tested each item. As we were testing we talked abit about why some float and others sink. But it was a hot day so we will come back another time to draw up our conclusions as to why some items float and others sink.

We looked at photosynthesis and what plants need. We talked about how leaves take in sunlight and need water and take in carbon dioxide (which humans breathe out). We discussed that the leaves produce glucose for the plant to grow and produce oxygen for humans to breathe in. Thomas wrote the descriptions of what is happening in the comic strip pictures that I drew. Here is the science. What Do Plants And Crops Need To Grow? Sunlight Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Water (H2O) Nutrients Correct Temperature Plants and crops absorb water (H2O) through their roots. This water (H2O) absorption is the means by which plants and crops gather nutrients from the soil. Temperature can affect the levels of water (H2O) absorption and nutrient intake. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and crops make their food using sunlight, water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Photosynthesis takes place in the leaf cells (chloroplasts). The leaf cells (chloroplasts...

Fill in a weather chart. Good practise writing days of week. We drew pictures and wrote words to describe the weather. You could extend the activity by researching how different weather occurs eg rain in the water cycle or thunder and lightning.

We have been making rain in a jar. Fill a jar three quarters full of cold water. Squirt shaving foam on the top of the water. Squirt droplets of food colouring onto the shaving foam. The shaving foam represents the clouds and the food colouring the rain. You can discuss the water cycle. The water on the ground evaporates to form water vapour, it condenses to create clouds the precipitation (rain, hail, snow) occurs when the vapour cools to form water droplets. The whole process repeats.

Make kitchen roll paint patterns. Fold up a piece of kitchen roll. Dip the corners into watery paint. We dipped each corner into a different colour. The paint will run along the paper. You can talk about how the paper absorbs the watery paint and you can see where it travels. Fold out and let dry. (We did this a few years ago.) We stuck the patterns to card to make birthday cards.

We are lucky enough to have some tadpoles. We have been learning what we can feed them and how to look after them We have learnt about the life cycle of the frog. I printed off some pictures from twinkl of the different stages of a frog's life from laying eggs, leave eggs, frogspawn, tadpole, froglet to adult frog. We cut out and stuck the pictures and labels onto green paper cut into a lily pad shape. We drew arrows to show the life cycle order.

The skittle rainbow experiment looks at sugar dissolving in warm water and osmosis. Place skittles around the edge of a white plate, alternate the colours making a rainbow pattern with the skittles. Add a small amount of warm water to cover the bottom of the plate. The colours starts to move towards the centre. Ask your child what is happening to the sweets? Why is the colour coming off the sweets? Talk about the coloured sugar coating is dissolving due to the warm water and we can see the sugar in the water. The coloured sugar is moving and creating a straight line to the centre due to osmosis. The colour particles from the skittles move from a high concentration - the sweets, to a low concentration, through a permeable solution. Thomas enjoyed swirling the plate and making the colours go a brown colour! Don't forget to save a few skittles to eat as a treat. 😉

Skittles Erosion Experiment. You need 3 plastic cups, 3 skittle sweets and water. Fill 2 cups half full of water and leave 1 cup empty of water. Put one sweet in each cup. Swirl one cup round in circular movements for 15 seconds every 5 minutes for up to an hour. Observe any changes. Discuss what is happening to the sweets and how this relates to weathering and erosion of the coastline by the sea. What has happened to the sweets? Why is this happening? What effect does the water have on the sweet? What effect does the movement of the water have on the sweet? What has happened to the sweet without water?

Life Cycle Of A Plant. We watched the video clip on BBC bitesize on the life cycle of a plant. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zgssgk7/articles/zyv3jty Then on white card cut into circles, we drew the 6 stages of the life cycle of the plant. The seed starts to grow shoots and roots in the ground.  The seed germinates and the shoot grows and appears above ground.  The seedling produces leaves which absorb sunlight in a process called photosynthesis.  The flower head grows, makes pollen and attracts bees, this is called pollination.  The fertilisation of the flower takes place and tiny seeds are produced.  Seed dispersal takes place usually when the flower head dies off. Seeds can be dispersed by the wind, drop to the ground or moved by animals.  The process then starts again with the new seeds, the life cycle begins again. We drew the pictures on the front of our cards and wrote what happened on the back. We hole punched the card a...

Grow some beans. We soaked some bean seeds we'd saved last year. A day later we put napkins in jam jars and soaked it in water. We added the bean seeds and put them in the airing cupboard to see what happens. After a few days some of the bean seeds have started to sprout roots and shoots. Once the seeds sprout, move the jars to a light place. Keep them wet. Talk about what plants need to grow. Water, air (carbon dioxide), light and nutrients. After a week or two plant them in pots of soil or compost. Ask why do you think the beans grow shoots shoots in the dark cupboard. Putting them in a dark cupboard (with warmth and water) encourages them to seek light and sprout.

I asked how do plants take in water? Thomas said by it's stem and roots. (I wrote down what Thomas said.) We talked about what plants need to grow. Water, nutrients in soil, air (carbon dioxide co2) sunlight. I asked what will happen when we put the cut flower in coloured water? Discuss prediction thinking about why. Thomas' prediction was... I think the flower will go greeny blue because the water will go up the stem and make the flower go blue. After a few days we looked at the flower and dissected the flower so we could see what happened. We discussed what we found. We could see blue water in the hollow stem and in the veins in the petals. Conclusion - What I found out... The flower takes in nutrients and water through the veins in the petal by the stem, we know this because the petal veins are greeny blue.

Look at the parts of a Flowering Plant. Pick a flower from the garden, we picked a daffodil. (Just be careful when picking flowers as some can irritate the skin, daffodils have a liquid sap that can irritate the skin. You could wear gloves or you touch the flower and wash hands after touching the flower. ) We cut the flower down the middle and looked at the different parts. Adults can do this or assist depending on age of child, we used a Stanley knife. Ask the children what they think the parts are. Petals, stem, leaves, pollen. Talk about what jobs they do. Stem anchors the plant and takes in water, leaves take in sunlight, petals attract bees for pollination, pollen is made to fertilise the plant to produce seeds. Use books and the Internet for scientific info. I had googled parts of a flowering daffodil and found some images with the parts labelled which can help with the more scientific name eg stigma, stamen anther, ovule, ovary, filament, spathe, sepal. We looked...

How do flowers take in water? What happens when we put flowers in coloured water? You need a white or light coloured flower eg daffodils or carnations. Food colouring, jar or vase, water.  Ask you child How do flowers take in water?  Talk about the roots taking in water from the soil and the water travels up the stem and into the veins in the petals and leaves. .  Ask them what happens when we put flowers in coloured water? You can talk about it or to extend it you can get the children to write a prediction giving a reason why.  Eg I think the petals will turn red because the coloured water travels up the stem and into the petals because flowers need water to live.  Put the cut flower into a glass jar or vase add water and some drops of food colouring - blue or red work well. Wait a day or so to see what happens.