One of the children’s engineering challenges for the week was to make slime! To do this, they mixed half a cup of water with half a cup of PVA glue and stirred. Next they mixed a teaspoon of Borax powder with a cup of water. This and a few drops of green food colouring were stirred into the mixture! See the gooey results for yourself 🙂
To complete this experiment the children had to figure out what the capacity of the bottle was using a measuring jug. They then had to quarter fill the bottle with water and figure out what two-thirds of the bottle’s total capacity was. They added this amount of vegetable oil to the water with 12 drops of food colouring. They broke the Alka-Seltzer into 4 parts and added them one by one, observing the effects. The children learned that the chemical energy from the Alka-Seltzer reacted with the water and produced carbon dioxide gas; which in turn tried to escape from the top.
To mark Engineers Week 2017, a civil engineer visited our school to talk about his job and explain how bridges are constructed. Children had the opportunity to use some of his equipment and ask plenty of questions!! The children in the senior classroom are now in the process of building their own bridges!
Martina Butler visited our school on the 27th of February. The senior classroom learned about pollination and pollinators. They investigated if our garden was a pollinator-friendly garden which indeed it is. In our garden, we have long grasses, wild flowers, pots with herbs, flowers that have grown from bulbs and flowering trees. All of which prove very alluring to the buzzing bees!
Guzzler and the polar bear taught the junior classroom about energy consumption and what can done to use less energy.
The children completed online quizzes prior to Engineering Week 2017 to find out what job in engineering may suit their interests!
Swimming began on Thursday 12th January for 6 weeks. It finished up yesterday Thursday 16th.
The children had great fun during this time.