STEM CLUB - 18 March 2024

For the final week of STEM club, enquiry was the order of the day. The children were presented with a variety of solids and the question, “Do all solids dissolve?”. Children were free to explore this however they deemed scientifically necessary. Variable changes included: liquid type (hot water, cold water, vinegar), quantity of the solid and the length of stirring time. They were particularly surprised at biodegradable packing and followed this with discussion on environmental impact. The children demonstrated a real awareness of what denoted a 'fair test' and used all the scientific skills that they had learnt across the term at STEM Club.

STEM CLUB - 20 February 2024

This week, in STEM club, the children pierced bags of water using pencils to find out how many pencils were needed to burst the bag. They quickly discovered that the sharpness of the pencil affected how efficiently it would penetrate the bag. Shorter pencils proved to be harder to get through the plastic without leakage occurring. Both the spacing and the angle of the pencils had an impact on how many pencils could be used before the bag burst. With a lot of trial and error, the record was 12 pencils!

The science behind this investigation: When you pierce the bag with the pencil, a polymer chain it broken, but the pencil creates a sticky seal preventing water from getting out.  

STEM CLUB - 6 February 2024

This week, STEM club explored chemical reactions. First, they drew faces onto sandwich bags. They then filled the bags with a mixture of vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and watched the faces "inflate". This reaction resulted in carbon dioxide being produced. Eventually, to their great delight, the bags popped! This experiment reminded the children, like the bag, if you bottle emotions up - they can burst out unexpectedly.

STEM CLUB - 12 January 2024

Last term, the Year 3 STEM Club members showed dedication, creativity and ingenuity in a wide range of experiments. Unknown to them, they were working towards the nationally-recognised SuperStar CREST award. Each child had to complete eight investigations, submitting evidence for each.  Congratulations to every member of STEM Club for achieving this and, in addition, our thanks to Miss Crawley for inspiring the children on their scientific journeys.

STEM CLUB - 24 November 2023

In an exciting conclusion to STEM Club for this term, Year 3 STEM members took on a festive challenge: redesigning a stable for Jesus using only newspaper and sellotape. This challenge taught our engineers the importance of secure anchor points and a secure foundation. They explored various techniques, discovering how to roll newspaper and how to achieve three different lengths. They also found out, through trial and error, why tight rolling is crucial. As you can see from the pictures below, there was a huge range of innovate designs and one even included a star for the wise men to follow. 

STEM CLUB - 10 November 2023

This week, our young engineers took a break to celebrate fireworks in a 'quiet' way! Each child designed their own firework display using a cotton pad and pipettes and a variety of food colouring. By placing the cotton pad in a petri dish of soap and then dropping it into a milk and food colouring solution, they created beautiful swirling fireworks. They learned that this effect was created because the fat in the milk and the water don't mix! 

STEM CLUB - 3 November 2023

This term, STEM Club members are going on an engineering journey.

On Monday of this week, they embarked on a landmark adventure, studying iconic structures like the Eiffel Tower, Elizabeth Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. Using creativity and teamwork, they planned the use of their 'ordered resources' before recreating their chosen building using cocktail sticks and mini marshmallows. All creations were successfully free standing!

STEM CLUB - 19 October 2023

In this week's STEM club adventure, the children explored the world of magnets, in the process creating a scene that depicted seasonal change. Armed with paper clips, string, wand magnets and an abundance of cardboard, our young innovators designed and made an autumnal scene containing a 'flying' object such as a kite, clouds, eagles, leaves and more. Each team presented their ideas to the group, explaining what they had chosen and why it reminded them of Autumn.

STEM CLUB - 13 October 2023

This week, STEM club embarked on a mission to explore the wonders of space. Each child started by creating their own paper astronaut; we can now confirm that many, somewhat-unusual animals have now visited the moon! After preparing their astronaut animals, the children gathered on the field to witness an epic rocket launch. One of our Science Ambassadors bravely combined vinegar and bicarbonate of soda inside a bottle then, plugging the neck with a cork, swiftly turned it upside down and retreated to the safety line. As the substances met, a speedy reaction occurred with the resultant gas caused pressure to build. To great delight, the cork shot out and a rocket propelled into the sky! We are sure that half of Sevenoaks must have heard the cheers from the safety line; these were even louder when everyone realised that Miss Crawley had been doused in the vinegary concoction too.

STEM CLUB - 6 October 2023

STEM Club is up and running and, as ever, the children are enjoying wonderful sessions of exploration and investigation.

This week at STEM club, linking to national Dyslexia Awareness Week, the children were celebrating the beauty of being unique! Our Year 3 scientists and Year 5 helpers delved into the fascinating world of DNA, investigating the secrets of life's building blocks. To sweeten the deal, they constructed an edible version of a DNA helix, embracing each sweet's individuality!

STEM CLUB - 16 June 2023

This week, STEM Club ventured into the sunshine to appreciate nature. With Father's day taking place this Sunday, the children created natural portraits of their Fathers and the items or activities that their Dads enjoy the most. Engineering minds were challenged when constructing tents out of sticks, footballs out of the inside tires, televisions out of leaves, dogs out of twigs and one child even attempted to make a free-standing version of themselves because "My Daddy loves me most in the world!". There were lots of grubby hands and fun was had by all.

19th July 2019 - Year 2 Science Club

The Year 2 Science Club members had an extra special treat for the last science club of the year!  Three Year 5 pupils, Madeleine, Esme and Millie, asked to lead the last club session as they had lots of exciting science activities that they wanted to share.  They carefully planned and prepared three activities involving chemical reactions, static electricity and vacuums!  The children had so much fun and enjoyed the jumping Cheerios, exploding volcanoes, flames and bursting water balloons that soaked the ceiling!  Miss Johnson was extremely impressed with how well the Year 5 pupils had researched the science behind their activities and could explain this to the younger pupils, who certainly learned a lot - thank you girls!  Lots of fun was had and plans for next year's STEM club have already begun. 

25th June 2019 - Preparing for summer!

Science club were extremely busy with their gardening trowels this week helping to prepare our school gardening beds. Lots of fun was had pulling out weeds, large and small, and breaking up the soil ready for planting. We discussed the role of the soil in helping seeds to germinate and plants to grow and we can’t wait to see our school gardening beds filled with bee-friendly pollinating plants and vegetables!

18th June 2019 - Bugs, Bugs, Worms and more Bugs!

Today, the children enjoyed visiting our forest school area to go on a bug hunt! They ensured to lift up all the logs and search all the nooks and crannies! They used magnifiers to closely observe the wildlife and see how they might be adapted to the habitats that they found them in. Lots of woodlice, worms, beetles and even a dragonfly was spotted

4thJune 2019 - Do taller people have bigger feet?

The children were extremely busy today conducting research around the school. I posed the question: Do taller people have bigger feet? The children quickly realised that we’d have to go around the school to ask people of different ages. Soon enough, we set off with our clipboards to find KS1 children, KS2 children, teachers and midday supervisors. We gathered all the data that we needed and then worked together to plot it on a group bar chart! We carefully interpreted the results and came to the conclusion that people feet do get bigger as they get older, but if you’re older than someone else, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have bigger feet!

21May 2019 - Let’s (not) take a dip in the school pond!

We visited the school pond today to explore and see what wildlife we could find! The children reached in as far as they could with their pond dipping nets, and we were fascinated with the range of creatures that we found! The children carefully transferred the wildlife into bowls so that we could carefully observe them. The children were so excited to see a whole load of bugs and pond life that they had never seen before! Lastly, and most importantly, we carefully put the creatures back into the natural habitat!

19th March 2019 - Our fluffy friends!

Science Club were extremely lucky to meet, and spend some time with, Year 3’s little visitors – six adorable ducklings! The children learnt all about the life cycle of ducks and some key features of the ducklings themselves! We learnt about what the ducklings need in the early stages of their lives to be healthy and how we can help provide that for them. Then, right at the end, all the children enjoyed allowing the ducklings to run around the classroom in the middle of their circle and they all had a stroke – which the ducklings loved!

12th March 2019 – Balloon fun!

Today, we saved our breath as we investigated which combination of ingredients would best blow up a balloon! The children chose from the options of bicarbonate of soda, flour, vitamin C tablets, washing up liquid, water and milk. Not only did the children compare which combination of ingredient made the balloon blow up the most, but they also started to change other variables such as amount and temperature! The children worked scientifically to ensure that the investigation was fair and their results were accurate – they also loved how messy it was! We had a lot of discussion about the production of ‘invisible’ gas from a chemical reaction, which get trapped inside the balloon!

27th February 2019 – Homemade lava lamps!
Today, we had lots of fun constructing lava lamps and watching the reactions that occurred. Water, food colouring, vegetable oil and effervescent tablets were the ingredients that we used. We discussed how the density and make-up of the different liquids contributed to the lava lamp effect and what was causing the ‘bubbles’ to move up and down. We subsequently investigated how the type of tablet, number of tablets, volume of oil and volume of water had on the lava lamps. The children very much enjoyed it when one of the lava lamps overflowed!

5th February 2019 - Disco Lights!

Today in science club, we were busy exploring light and dark. We found out how shadows were created and how the shape and size of shadows can change – we made the shadows of our hands nearly fill the whole ceiling! We learnt lots of new scientific words whilst looking at light filters such as transparent, translucent and opaque. We also used different coloured materials to explore how the colour of light can be changed and manipulated. The children were very excited at the thought of making disco ball lights on the ceiling and we finished with a bit of a party!

6th and 13th November 2018 – Who knew that straws were so puzzling…?
Over the last two weeks, we have been enjoying a STEM challenge that involved creating marble mazes using trays and straws! The children had to carefully create a pathway for a marble, ensuring that all spaces were the appropriate width and provided the element of confusion to ensure that the puzzle would be challenging. Lots of the pupils even decided to incorporate different materials to add obstacles. The children really engaged with this task and loved trying to complete each others’ mazes (and watching me try to as well!)

2nd October 2018 - Let's go for a spin!

This week, Year 3 STEM club were busy making spinners and timing how long they took to reach the floor. They considered a variety of variables that could be changed or influenced and collected data to see how these affected the time. Some examples were: changing the material, changing the length of the wings, changing the number of wings, changing the number of paper clips. It was brilliant seeing the pupils construct and investigate their own questions and ideas and use scientific investigation to answer them!

Friday 8th June 2018 – All about the heart!

We had a great time at science club this week exploring how our heart keeps us alive! We used drama to help us understand how the heart pumps blood to and from the lungs and to and from the body. We even explored why this was so important by showing when our blood is oxygenated and deoxygenated, and how and why this is changed when the blood travels around the body! The children engaged with this so well and were asking such brilliant questions which we answered and discussed as a group.

Some examples were:

Why does the heart have two sounds in a beat?
When it’s got oxygen from the lungs, why does the blood travel back to the heart before going to the body where it is needed?
Why can still use oxygen and move underwater when we can’t breathe?
Why can fish use the oxygen in the water but humans can’t?

Friday 18th May 2018 – Spinners!

Today, in science club, we investigated how materials and size can affect the speed of falling spinners! The children concluded that rigid materials were best at slowing the spinners down. We discussed that this was due to the material providing a sturdy surface area to resist against air and slow the spinner down. Longer wings provided the same result, also due to the increase air resistance force. The children were extremely good at linking their learning to real world examples such as sycamore seeds and parachutes.

Friday 11th May 2018 - Candy Catapults!

Today the year 3 science club members were busy building catapults from lolly sticks and rubber bands! Using a range of candy ammo, they investigated how the weight and shape of the sweet affected the distance it travelled. A range of results were concluded which led to discussions about fair testing and human error in science. The pupils' scientific explanations involved key concepts such as force, air resistance and weight.

30 November 17

Today was our last Year 1 science club! We had some Christmas science fun with sleigh races! We had a selection of different wooden blocks (sleighs) which each had a different material on the bottom. We raced our sleighs down the ramps to see which was the quickest and which was the slowest. We discussed how the different materials had different textures which meant that the amount of friction force was different. If there was more friction then the sleigh would go slower and if there was less friction then the sleigh would travel quicker!

Year ones, I hope you have enjoyed science club! Year 2 science club will be starting after Christmas!

23 November 17

​Today we created our own wonderful lava lamps! We found out that water and oil have different densities which means that they don't mix together. When we added a tablet the reaction produced a gas and the air bubbles carried the colour with them around the bottle. It was really exciting watching the wonderful colours and bubbles of gas and water move around!

SCIENCE CLUB BLOGS

16 Nov 17 – Leaves
We were thinking all about the seasons today! We discussed why the leaves fall off the trees and why they change colour. The children shared their fantastic knowledge with me as I know they have been learning about seasons in class! We were then inspired by arist, Andy Goldsworthy, who used the colours of the leaves to produce some wonderful natural art.

 

9 Nov 17 - Microscopic nature
We went exploring in forest school today to find some natural objects that we thought looked really interesting. We then used the digital microscope to look and them really closely! We were amazed at the details and patterns that we found!

2^nd Nov – 17 Straw structures
Today we really had to think about what makes structures strong. We worked in groups to see who could build the tallest structure out of straws and plasticine. Different groups investigated lots of different shapes. The winners used a wide base and managed to get their tower to reach 27cm!

5 Oct 17 - Clouds!
We used water, shaving foam and food colouring to investigate how clouds work. We explored the idea that clouds are made from water droplets that have evaporated and then cooled, which fall down as rain when they get too heavy!