Sinking and floating is great first science activity for even very young children ( carefully supervised ) and can easily be extended for older children. We’re all about the pirates this week, so collected lots of pirate themed treasure to test. Do you know why things float in water? What you need for a pirate…
A balloon-powered car is a great way to learn about kinetic energy, potential energy, conservation of energy and Newton’s Laws of Motion. When you blow up a balloon, it stores potential energy in the form of the stretched skin of the balloon and compressed air inside the balloon. When you let go of the balloon,…
Are you ready for our 6th LEGO® activity for the summer? We made several bridges and then devised a way to test how stable they were. First, we discussed how to test each bridge. We tried adding weights to the top, but they just fell off rather than breaking the bridge. We tried hanging weights from…
My children are all loom band crazy, so this week I set them a challenge. I made two loom band bouncy balls using this tutorial on Loom Love. One with 17 loom bands inside and one with just 10. I then asked the kids to work out which had the most bands in. This was great practice…
Our fourth LEGO science post for the summer is super simple and great fun for kids of all ages. All you need to do is collect different bits of LEGO, design a table to show your results and try and hypothesise which will float and which will sink. Test your LEGO and see if you…
We once spent days making different types of mazes from LEGO®. You’ll need a flat building plate, a good selection of bricks, a small ball or marble and some imagination! Things to think about Our first attempt featured a dead end, a ramp and a space for the marble to end up. Improvements…
Put your engineering skills to the test with a parachute STEM Challenge. Your challenge is to design and build a parachute to slow the fall of a small toy to the ground. This activity is great for learning about the forces involved in flight. You’ll need to consider air resistance, gravity and the properties of…
We love LEGO® here at Science Sparks and can’t wait to share our latest science and LEGO® creations. First up is a catapult. Catapults are great for learning about gravity and transfer of energy. When you pull down on the catapult arm, elastic potential energy is stored. When you release the catapult arm, the potential…
Following on from our post about patterns and measuring with loom bands, we’ve devised a little activity to investigate what happens when you add weight to different types of loom bands. What you need: Different types of loom bands to test, we used a normal band, a fishtail and a starburst. A ruler A weight Somewhere…
Full details coming soon, but the idea behind this activity is to find a way to keep porridge warm while the bears go for a walk. Try leaving one bowl uncovered, place a plate over another and kitchen foil over another. Take the temperature of the porridge every 5 minutes…what happens?
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