Science
Supporting your child with Science at home!
You may be wondering about you can support your child with science whilst at home. At Westglade, the content of our Science teaching and learning is taken from the 2014 National Curriculum for primary schools in England.
The content covered in each of our year groups is as follows:
How can I help my child at home?
1. Be interested!
Find out about your child's termly topic. this can be found for each year group on their class page. If you're not sure, you can always ask their teacher. You can then use books or the internet to research and is a great way to brush up on your own knowledge of the topic! Then you can have interesting conversations where you and your child are both learning at the same time!
2. Be curious!
Why not use this time to find out more about a famous scientist. I have listed some examples below. You could also research innovative and exciting inventions up to and including the present day.
| Ole Kirk Christiansen | Ole Kirk Christiansen invented Lego in 1949. |
| Mae Jemison | Mae was the first African-American female to fly into space in 1992. She was also a scientist. |
| Tim Smit | Tim Smit has the idea to build the Eden Project. |
| Nicholas Grimshaw | Nicholas Grimshaw designed the biomes for the Eden Project. |
| Jane Colden | Jane Colden was a botanist. She is thought to be America's first female botanist. |
| Louis Pasteur | Louis Pasteur discovered that germs are living things that can be spread by touch or through the air. |
| Charles Mackintosh | Charles Mackintosh invented the first waterproof fabric. |
| John McAdam | John McAdam invented tarmac to create smooth, hard roads. |
| Alexander Graham Bell | Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born scientist and inventor best know for inventing the first working telephone in 1876. |
| Charles Darwin | Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best know for his contributions to the science of evolution. |
| Galileo Galilei | An Italian scientist who was the first to prove that the Earth and the planets revolve around the sun and not, as previously thought, around the Earth. |
| Jane Goodall | British researcher Jane Goodall is best known as the top expert on chimpanzees and actually lived among them in Africa! |
| Marie Curie | Marie Curie was a physicist who discovered radioactivity. The Curies came up with the term 'radioactivity' to describe elements that emitted strong rays. |
| The Wright Brothers | In 1903, the Wright brothers achieved the first powered, sustained and controlled aeroplane flight. |
3. Be practical!
There are lots of fun and practical activities that you can take part in ta home. Children love to learn through practical, hands-on activities and finding things out for themselves! It is a perfect opportunity for them to learn about and understand the world around them.
You can use the internet to search for fun, practical science experiments that you can do at home using everyday objects! I have given you some ideas below.
- Try exploring changing states with ice and water to begin to see those changes that can be reversed and those that can’t.
- Cooking is also a great opportunity to mix ingredients, add heat and examine changing states.
- A real favourite would have to be ‘gloop’ — use water and cornflour (add food colouring too if needed) to explore solids and liquids. Just be prepared to get messy!
- Find out what happens when you mix food colouring in with milk. Then add washing up liquid and watch what happens!
- Why not try making your own mini exploding volcano? Just add bicarbonate of soda, food colouring, washing up liquid and vinegar. Then stand back and watch the eruption!