In Autumn our science day theme was colour. We came into school in our colourful clothes and engaged in a range of colourful science experiments. It was an exciting day all over school and it gave us the opportunity to develop our scientific language and observation skills.

Southey Tots

At nursery we have been exploring what happens when a tiny bit of coloured powder is added to cornflour and water. We made a variety of different colours and were fascinated to discover that we could make even more colours when we mixed two different colours together.

Southey Nursery

The children in Nursery have had a fantastic stay and play exploring colour.

We investigated how water is transported, by putting white flowers into different colour water. We also watched water transporting colour from one beaker to another and how it made the middle container a totally different colour!  We made marks in the rainbow tray and discussed what colours we could see. We observed what happens when colour moves through shaving foam, like when the clouds rain.  We used syringes to transport colour and make new colours! We have had such a fun day being scientists!

Reception

The children enjoyed exploring colour on science day!

We took part in many activities both inside and outside. After predicting and sharing our ideas we started a class experiment. The children put some flowers in coloured water. It took a long time but the petals all changed colour, just like some of the children had predicted.  Lilly Rose and Lainey painted a picture using colours they had to mix together, from exploring they found yellow and blue made green!  Some children then used the pipettes outside to explore what happens when they mixed the coloured water.  Also this month we have been talking about bonfire night and nocturnal animals in-particular hedgehogs. The children recalled many facts and drew their own pictures of hedgehogs. Come and look at our large collage hedgehog on the wall in the unit. 

Year 1

In year one we investigated how rainbows are made. We had a go at creating our own rainbows using light and crystals. We experimented with how holding the torch at different angles changed the spectrum that was created and then drew what we could see. We know that rainbows are made when light splits when travelling through water.

Year 2

What a brilliant colour science day year 2 have had! We investigated into which materials are absorbent. We know that an absorbent material sucks liquid up. We observed the materials very carefully when they were placed into the coloured water mix. Wow! We were so surprised what happened. We saw the coloured water soak up into most the materials. We think the most absorbent material is sponge or tissue. The least absorbent material is foil- we only saw the water sit on top of the foil. We would like to see if wood or plastic is absorbent next.

Year 3

Y3 have had so much fun! We made predictions looking at our resources and discussed the different experiments that could take place just from these things alone. Then the investigating began! First of all we explored the density of water and food colouring and thought about why the food colouring fell straight to the bottom of the cup. We then used our kitchen towels to explore absorbency. After that we decided for ourselves what we would like to change to alter the speed of the absorbency. Some of us added more food colouring; others changed the width/length of the kitchen towels and there were plenty of other changes too!

Year 4

Year 4 had an exciting colour day, so exciting that we wanted to do another experiment the next day. We used homemade universal indicator (red cabbage juice) to find out which liquids were acidic, alkaline or neutral. We did a lot of predicting and were surprised to find out that fizzy drinks and fruit juice were acidic. We then wanted to see what happened if we mixed an acid and alkaline together, and we discovered that this neutralises it! But found out it was tricky to get the perfect amount of acid and alkaline.