Science Day

 

Blow up balloons

When we lit the balloons with a lighter the rubber melted causing th eballoons to pop. 

At first it made no difference what the size of the balloon was. Even though the rubber was streched more and thinner, they all popped at around 1 second. Then we lit them with water in them. The water inside absorbed the heat from the fire, giving the balloon more time until it pops. At first [with only a tiny bit of water in] the balloon lasted 5 seconds. The timings quickly escalated with th e next two balloons. Then [with a lot of water] it lasted 102 seconds. 

Pennies in  jar.

We completed an experiment where we put pennies in a jar to see how many pennies it would take to over flo the jar filled to the brim with water. We went around the table to drop pennies in - we estimated that between 1 and 22 pennies. Unfortunately we were well off! In total we placed in 171 pennies, 31 2ps, 65 5ps which in total added up to £5.43. As we placed money in the jar, the water curved which is called a 'meniscus'. The experiment was all about surface tension.

Ball of electricity

Our first experiment from Sam Simple Science was where everyone stood in a circle and held hands. We had a special ball that was a buzzer to complete the circuit - when everyone was touching hands the buzzer made a loud noise. Corey released one hand from the circuit and by touching Sienna's nose he created a switch. 

Vinegar circuits

Firstly we were given 5 nails and 5 pieces of copper wire. We had to bend the copper wire around the nail and leave a right angle at the end. Then we had to pour vinegar into 6 ice cube trays - half full. Once we had the vinegar and the nails, we needed to place the nails inside the trays ensuring that one nail and one piece of the copper wire was in each tray (they didn't need to touch because the vinegar was the conductor of electricty in our circuit). Anne (from Sam Simple Science) gave us an LED light - we had to identify the long and short legs - we bent the legs and placed then in the vinegar to complete the circuit. When we completed the circuit accurately the LED light lit up.

Playdoh circuits

We made different circuits with a battery, a wire, playdoh and an LED light. First we had to split the playdoh into 2 balls, then we got the wire and battery (once attached) and placed a wire into each ball of playdoh. After that we took our LED light and spearated the legs - the long leg went in the piece of playdoh with the red wire - if the legs were the wrong way around, then the light didn't work. 

All of the elements made a circuit when put together. 

Our experiment continued with us making more circuits using playdoh which included parallel circuits.

Stars

Anne provided us with an LED light (LED stands for Light Emitting Diode), 3D printed stars, tape, and a battery. We were allowed to chose the colour we wanted, they were all colured coded When we put the star over the LED light it shone up - yellow was the brightest. 

2p coin

This experiment we completed with all of KS2 - we filled half a jar with water, filled the rest with vinegar and then added in some salt. Each group had 2p coins and took it in turns to dip them in the jar. The dirty coins got cleaned. Everybody chose a time for how long the coin was put in the jar - the longest was 90 seconds. The material that cleaned the coin was vinegar - which is an acid. Copper oxide is dissolved by the acid (vinegar).

Exploding bottle bomb

We got an empty, transparent bottle and poured in half a bottle of vinegar. Then added bicarbonate of soda. After that we put the lid on the bottle [bad idea]. We then added mints and put the lid back on [bad idea]. We shook it. FAIL! It failed because the built-up gas escaped when we took the lid off. The second trial was more sucsessful.We did all the same steps as last time apart from that we shook it straight after we added the mints an dpput the lid on after. We then shook the bottle and took the lid off, it instanly flew half way across the playground. SUCCSES! It was a lot of fun. The science behind it was the acid [in the vinegar]  reacting to the bicarbonate of soda and mints causing an explosion.

Ingredients:

vinegar

bicarbonate of soda

mints

transparant bottle. 

Great Gaddesden vs Kensworth football update

Gaddesden League update

Match Report
The season is now under way and what a curtain raiser it was. Great Gaddesden hosted Kensworth using Kenworth’s field as theirs in unavailable for the time being. It was a very even match, Great Gaddesden putting Kensworth under ressure and going deservedly 1 nil up with Caden’s well taken goal.

Kensworth dug in and kept making chances, eventually equalizing through Wills strike with only 10 minutes left on the clock! Both teams had chances to grab a winner but a combination of good defending and goalkeeping saw the game finish all square

The Match finished: Great Gaddesden 1 – 1 Kensworth

 

Next 3 Fixtures

28 Sep - Gaddesden Row v Markyate

5 Oct - Kensworth v Flamstead

12 Oct - Gaddesden Row v Kensworth

Egyptian Workshop

Last Friday we had an Egyptian workshop for the day, we all came in with an ancient Egyptian costume on. First we were learning how to measure in the Egyptian way,  28 fingers = a royal cubit and 7 palms = a royal cubit and 4 fingers = a palm.
During our dancing lesson, we listened to Egyptian music, it is quite different to our English music. We had to put one hand behind our back and one just under our chest showing our palm. Our feet never left the floor - instead we shuffled around.
After this, we did a quiz on the ancient Egyptians, we had a question sheet with numerous questions on multiple topics, The answers were on boards around the hall. We discovered out scribes train for 8 years, if a family cat died that would shave off their own eyebrows, Egyptians treated cuts and wounds with mouldy bread and onions were their favourite food.
Next in our workshop, we discovered Tutankhamen's tomb might be his step mothers tomb - Nefertiti. We were handing around artefacts, we also held a sword called a khopesh, They used it to slice of enemies palms to count how many they killed, their slaves would count them one by one.
In the afternoon we learnt how to mummify some one and we did a small role play. To mummify someone you had to use your all your force and push with the end of your palm and break the nose,which allows the hook to be pushed through the nose and pull the brain back through the nose.

At the end we all were given a character trait and we marched the body around the school. And finally we put it in a sarcophagus, an Egyptian coffin.He told us that a priest cursed the door so bad luck would come to anyone who entered it, the curse included : death will come by wings, is it just a coincidence Lord Carnarvan was bitten by a mosquito a few months later after opening the tomb? .Also before the Egyptians were aloud into the after life they had to successfully go through multiple trials, the last one was the weighing of the heart, the heart was placed on one side of a set of scales and a feather was placed on the other side and if they led a bad life their heart would be heavy and go down, into the eyesight of the beast ammit where he would eat it. However, if they led a good life their heart would weigh the same as the feather and they were aloud into the after life.    

We all learned something new from our workshop and had a great day!

Netball Match

On Thursday we went to play a Netball match against Little Gaddesden. By the end of the first 20mins the score was 2-2. Dylan scored the first goal and Kaia scored the second goal. At the end of the match the score ended up as 7-2 to Little Gaddesden. despite us losing, we still enjoyed the match and we all demonstrated our value of the month, unity.

Gymnastics at Cavendish

Today year 5&6 went to Cavendish to do Gymnastics. The routines we created included the use of wall bars, benches, mats and the gym stall. The criteria we had to meet for our routine was the following:
* Travel around the gym from the various apparatus in different ways.
* Hold a balance on the wall bars.
* Perform a roll on the mat.
* Over the gym stall we had to either perform a tuck, pike or straddle jump.

We were given time to perfect our routines before we showed them to the rest of the class and then we paired up and gave each other feedback using two stars and a wish.

Overall we had a fantastic morning and we are looking forward to next week already!

Take a look at some of our photos below.

Martial Arts

Two weeks ago we started Martial Arts. The first week we did punching and jumping. We were practising our 'jabbing' with a partner using pads. We were given instructions such as 'right, right, left or right, right, right, left, left. The second week we did kicking so we had to grab hold of the wall and kick onto a paddle that our partner held up.

Here are some pictures:

Play leaders

For the last two weeks, year 5&6 have been training to become play leaders. A play leader is someone who leads games for the younger ones. We have been working in groups of three. We started this project so that the younger pupils in the school had a choice of games to play at lunch time. For the first session we drew a spider diagram and came up with ideas of games. Our next session, we practised our games on Reception children. We personally thought they enjoyed it - they played 'Shark Attack', 'Chicken or Hero' and 'Pac-man'. These games worked just as well for years 1&2 but we also tried others with them which were, 'Dishes and Domes', 'What's the time Mr Wolf' and 'Hide and Seek'. This week we will have our last training session before we find out if we have qualified as a 'Play Leader'. Miss Williams and Mrs Comer have been assessing our skills throughout the sessions.

Making biscuits

Last Tuesday we were given the task from Miss Williams to see what ingredients would work well to make biscuits. There were two groups but we split off into 4 to make different kinds of biscuits such as milk chocolate, white chocolate, raisins and white chocolate and raisins. We milked 4oz of butter, 2oz of sugar, 2 teaspoons of water, 6oz of plain flour. After that we rolled out our mixture to a thickness of around 5mm and floured work surface and we cut them into various shapes. Two groups decided to cover their chocolate with more of the mixture and the other two groups mixed their chocolate/raisins in with their mixture.
Once we had cooked them, we evaluated them against their appearance, texture and taste.

Space assembly

This morning we had a visitor in school called Robin Mobbs. He came to talk to us all about Space. The first thing he showed us was a real size rocket that was laying down by our school (obviously we didn't go outside and he didn't bring a real rocket!) he showed us on Google Earth.

Max took part in one of the experiments this morning, firstly he had to dress up as Galileo and then drop two tennis balls at the same time from the same height. They both hit the floor at the same time, but Max didn't tell us that one was heavier than the other. We assumed tat something heavier would fall quicker than the lighter object, but this was not the case.

Helen Sharman was in fact the first British person to go into Space, not Tim Peake. Michael Foal and a number of others have also been into Space, but because their parents are not both British they were not classed as British astronauts.

Astronauts practice Space walking in a huge swimming pool. To practice what it is like in zero gravity conditions,they go into an aeroplane called the 'Vomit Comet' because it tends to make you sick.

When a launch takes place you have to stand at least you have to stand at least 5 miles away, any closer and you will be killed from the flames or by the sound alone as it is so loud.

Ben got the chance to dress up as an astronaut - unfortunately not in a real Spacesuit as they cost a LOT of money - so Ben's Spacesuit was made from a white bin liner! He had lots of tubing stuffed under his top as this would be used to change the temperature - it can pump hot or cold water through the pipes depending on the temperature.

Ben wore airtight bags on his arms and legs to complete the Spacesuit. The difference in pressure inside and outside of his suits means that it is difficult to bend his arms and legs - he found it incredibly hard work. Astronauts have a similar problem with their gloves too, meaning that it is just as difficult to bend their fingers. To help him move, Ben was giving skateboards to put under his feet to represent how it would feel to walk in Space.