The adventures of Elmer and Steve!

On Friday afternoon we made up a story about Elmer, the colourful elephant we've been learning about. We thought of adjectives to describe him, such as funny and kind. Then we thought of a different character who wasn't like Elmer - he was rude and grumpy! Jamie decided to call him Steve. We are learning how to write a story in three sentences. The first sentence introduces our characters. In the second sentence something happens. Finally, the story comes to a conclusion in the last sentence. We practised telling our story using our kung fu punctuation and using our voices for expression. We had to remember to speak clearly and in a big voice. We watched the video of our first try and decided we weren't speaking loudly enough, so we tried again. This one is much better!

Colour changing water

This morning we did an experiment with red cabbage. We had some red cabbage water (which was purple) and we wanted to find out what happened when we added different things to it. We made predictions about what might happen then tested it out to see if we were right. First we added lemon juice. We guessed the lemon juice might make it go yellow "because lemon juice is yellow" so we were very surprised when it turned red!

Next we added egg white. Some people thought it might turn the water white "because it's white" but Olivia suggested it would turn the water red "the same as the other one." But when we added the egg white, it turned blue!

Then we added vinegar. Some of us thought it might turn the water white, but Harry said that because the egg white was white and had turned the cabbage water blue, the vinegar would too. But when we added the vinegar, the water turned pink!

Finally we looked at bicarbonate of soda. It was a very white powder, which Fallon said looked like snow. Most people thought it would turn the water white because it was such a bright white. But when we added it to the water, it turned blue!

We talked about our results and what we had found out - what happens to red cabbage water when you add things to it? The colour changes! The tricky science behind this is that our red cabbage water showed us whether something was an acid or an alkali - acids will turn the water red or pink and alkalis will turn it blue.

During child initiated time some of us chose to experiment with the rest of the cabbage water and try other things from around the classroom to see whether they made the water red or blue. We made predictions and then tested to see if we were right! We tried...

soap

milk 

orange juice 

water 

tea 

strawberry milkshake powder 

and honey 

Here are all the lovely colours we made! 

Colour investigations

This morning we have been doing some science investigations on our topic of colour. First, we were exploring what happens when different colours are mixed together. We knew from our work yesterday what happens when paint colours are mixed together, but what happens when you mix other things together? We explored mixing coloured water, coloured sand, coloured playdough, coloured play foam and different types of coloured paper and cellophane. Sometimes our predictions were right - red and yellow water did make orange water and we made purple playdough by mixing blue and red together. But sometimes we didn't get what we expected - blue and red water didn't really make purple and the grains of sand didn't mix together to make different colours, it just made multicoloured sand!

With Mrs Batson we explored oil paints and water and made some lovely marble pictures.

With Miss Ayres we did an investigation with skittles. We put 5 skittles in a clear pot and then dripped some water on with a pipette. Some of us thought the water might change the colour of the skittles and some of us thought the water would just make them wet. We had to keep watching the skittles and we saw the colours start to come off and make patterns! We tried the skittles in a different arrangement to make a different pattern.

Colour mixing continued

This afternoon we finished our colour wheels by exploring what happens when you mix two primary colours. We learnt that:

blue + red = purple

red + yellow = orange

yellow + blue = green

We had great fun mixing the colours! Sometimes we were right about what the two colours would make, but sometimes we were wrong!

Can you taste the colour?

This morning we did an experiment to see if different coloured food tastes different. We talked about what colour different foods are and if we thought things tasted different if they were different colours. Grace said "if there was a red hot dog it wouldn't taste the same as a brown hot dog" and Olivia said "if a blueberry was black it wouldn't taste the same." We thought about how we could test this out and decided we would need to taste food of different colours to see if they tasted the same or different. We also talked about how we could record our results during our experiment.

First, we had three different jellies. Trystan said he thought the first one would be lime "because it's green" but when we took it out of the mould it was orange - it was just the green mould making it look green! There was also a red jelly and a pink jelly. We talked about it and decided that the jellies would all taste different, and we recorded this prediction on our sheet.

Then we tasted the jellies. We had to try all three flavours so we could decide if they tasted the same or different. We all agreed that they tasted different - one tasted of orange, one of blackcurrant and one of strawberry. We recorded this on our sheet.

After that we had some starburst. We thought these would all taste different too - and they did! We had to make sure we tried two of a different colour so we could work out whether they tasted the same or different.

Next we had some smarties. These were also different colours. Some of us thought they might taste the same, but most of us thought they would also taste different because of the different colours. We had to eat two smarties of different colours to test our theory! Some of us were surprised to find they tasted the same. Harry thought it was because "inside they're all chocolate."

Finally we looked at the results we had recorded and talked about what we had found out. Had we learnt that different coloured food always tastes different, sometimes tastes different, or never tastes different? We agreed that different coloured food sometimes tastes different - the jellies and starburst tasted different, but even though the smarties were different colours, they all tasted the same.

During snack time we also tried two different types of pudding - one was yellow and one was brown. What flavours do you think they might have been? The brown one was the most popular!

Colour mixing

Today we learnt about three important colours, called primary colours - red, blue and yellow. We are going to experiment with these colours to see what happens when they mix together. We started by painting red, yellow and blue on our colour wheels and left spaces in between. When this paint is dry, we will explore what happens when we mix colours and will complete our beautiful colour wheels! We made predictions about what we think will happen when the colours mix together... what will red and blue make? What about red and yellow? Or yellow and blue? Check back later this week to see our finished colour wheels and find out what we've learnt about colour mixing!

ICT and more colour experiments!

This afternoon we continued our experiment to see what things can be seen underneath paint. We tried chalks, colouring pencils, crayons and felt tip pens. Some of us thought we would be able to see our pictures underneath the paint and some of us thought we wouldn't. Look at our pictures - what do you think our results were? Something interesting also happened when the felt tip pens mixed with the paint - what do you think happened?

We also used the Paint programme on the computer to make pictures. We learnt how to use the pencil, fill and brush tools and use different colours. Look at our pictures and see all the different colours and tools we used.