St Patrick's Catholic Primary School

Materials and their Properties 

We have been learning about materials and are becoming very confident naming lots of different ones. These last couple of weeks we have begun to look at the properties of materials to help describe what they are like and today we had great fun being science detectives investigating some different materials. 

We tested various materials to see if they were; bendy or not bendy, transparent or opaque and hard or soft. We have even learnt some fantastic new vocabulary!

Monday 6th February 2017
Umbrella Investigation

Today our help was required for our friend ‘Ted’. He was in need of a new umbrella but didn’t know what material would be best to use. We had four different materials to test to see which would be the most suitable for Ted’s new umbrella. We added each material to a container and poured some water over the top and waited to see the effect. Our first material was felt and after careful investigation we concluded that it was not suitable, as it was not waterproof allowing the water to soak through. We then moved onto some paper and again after investigating we noticed that even though not a lot of water came through the material became very weak and broke easily. Next we tried some tissue which was again not waterproof and also became very weak in the water. Finally we tried a plastic bag and noticed straight away that it was waterproof as the water ran straight off. We even tested to see if the plastic had become weak. 
It didn’t take us long to realise that plastic was the most suitable material, proving that we are Super Scientist’s! 

Floating and Sinking

We have been learning all about floating and sinking. We explored the concepts of both and learn't that objects float because they have air inside which makes them lighter than the water. Objects which sink don't have air inside and are heavy than water. We gad great fun testing lots of different objects to see which would sink and float and were very surprised by some! 

Ice Investigation

Today we became science detectives! Some pennies had got stuck inside some ice and it was our job to try and get it out. We thought about many different ways that we could achieve this and knew melting the ice was our best option. We realised that we would have to warm up the particles inside the ice to achieve this and decided to see if materials would assist the process. We had a selection of different materials and chose foil, felt and paper towel. We also decided to leave one cube without anything. We wrapped the ice in the different materials and left them to see what would happen. We were shocked to find that foil was the best at assisting in melting and that felt was the best insulator keeping the ice cube solid for longer. We had great fun being science detectives and have loved learning all about ice.

Monday 20^th March 2017

House Investigation

Today our help was needed from the 3 little pigs. They want to build some new houses but are not sure which materials would be the best. It was our job as science detectives to investigate the different materials and predict the ones we thought were the best. We had lots of materials to choose from including:

Lollypop sticks

Marshmallows

Straw

Sugar cubes

Feathers

Paper straws

Pasta

Cocktail sticks

We explored the different materials and cannot wait to test them to see which ones will be the most suitable.