We have been thinking about Solids, Liquids and Gases and talking about their particles. It was fun pretending to be particles ourselves.

To be solid particles we had to stand close together and try not to move very far.

To act like liquid particles we had to stay close together but we could slide a little. This is why liquids flow.

Pretending to be Gas particles was most fun. We could move quickly with lots of energy and fill the whole space !

We froze some water overnight and observed the water change state from solid back to liquid.

In the second half term we looked at temperature.  To start off our topic, we had a visit from Mr Pratt.  Here some photos of the experiment we did with him.

Mr Pratt then showed us what happened when you put cold water on top of each other:

It mixes!!!!

But when you put cold water on top of hot water, this happens:

In the first, half term we investigated solids and liquids.  We carried out an experiment to find out which material flowed the quickest through a hole.

We also used sieves and filter paper to separate different solids (coffee granules, salt, raisins, sand, cornflour and pasta) from water.

We also enjoyed a visit seeing different types of owls.

 We also enjoyed meeting Mrs Caverley, a lovely lady who has lived in Otley all of her life. Many of the class were surprised to learn that when Mrs Caverley was a child the street they lived on had not yet been built! It was really interesting to hear about Otley during the war - at least our class today doesn't have to recite its timetables wearing gas masks.

We then enjoyed learning about the River Wharfe.  We used water colours and oil pastels to paint different scenes of the river.

We also had a go at doing cross stitch to make fish.

During Science week our class investigated what happened when mentos were added to large bottles of fizzy drinks. We designed fair tests to see which type of fizzy drink produced the largest explosion and also whether the temperature of the fizzy drink had an effect. The experiments were a lot of fun and very informative.

The final task of our active earth topic was to build models of volcanos which could be painted and then filled with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to initiate volcanic eruptions. Particularly enjoyable was applying modroc to the models - a rather messy activity as can be seen from the pictures below.

School trips are always exciting and this years trip to the Science Adventure Centre at Magna was particularly good fun and very informative.