Properties of Materials

Properties of Materials
Student will explore different materials that make up objects in the world around us. These different materials have special properties that enable the objects to be used for the particular purpose for which they were designed. Students will explore the special properties of water and the properties of materials that are designed to soak up or repel water. This experiment, using test tubes and lots of bright colours produces surprising results that delight. Children will then explore some of the properties of metals by making metal sculptures that defy gravity. They will also explore properties of elastic materials and how we can use the energy stored in elastic materials.

Shapes and How Things Move

Shapes and How Things Move

How do things move? It’s all to do with their shape! Why are different things different shapes? How to circular things roll? Why do flat things stay still? This exciting session, full of moving objects, sees each of the children exploring the movement of a variety of different shaped objects through pushes, pulls, gravity and simple machines. It finishes with an experiment that uses our favourite 3D gas filled spheres (aka bubbles) and food colouring to cement the understanding of the difference between 2D and 3D shapes through the creation of a beautiful take home piece of art. 

Forces

Forces

How do pushes and pulls make things move or change shape? What is a push or a pull? Can things move if we don’t touch them? Children will investigate how we use pushes and pulls 1000s of times a day to do almost every task; get dressed, walk, run, jump, colour, glue, throw or kick a ball, eat food etc. We will explore the relationship between how hard we push and pull something with how far the object moves. The children will make things move by rolling, cutting, stretching, squeezing, pushing, pulling and even splatting.

Simple Machines

Simple Machines

This session has objects flying around the room as we explore how a small amount of input (from us) can be converted to a much larger output with the help of simple machines. Simple machines help by doing some of the work for us. Every student will make exciting things happen using levers, screws, wheels and axels, wedges, inclines and pulleys.  This session should ideally be run in a large space like a gym, multi-purpose room or relatively empty space.

Living Things

Living Things

What are living things? What features do they have? Children will explore the different features of living things in three hands-on and super tactile experiments. This session gets awesomely messy but we assure you we will put down a tarp, supply lab coats and safety glasses and clean up. The children will be talking about it for weeks!

Observing Changes

Observing Changes

In this session, children will observe changes to objects in front of their eyes. They will create an artwork using plants and then INSTANTLY change the colours of their work by the addition of other special ‘chemicals’. It seems like magic. This experiment is very tactile and sees crushing and squashing of plant materials to extract a rainbow of colours. Children will then mix together two liquids and observe one change to a semi-solid in less than a minute. This is a super squishy and magical experiment that children LOVE. 

Microbes

Microbes

In this session we learn about how amazing our bodies are and how we can keep ourselves healthy. What are germs? We investigate the micro world of living things (germs) through three awesomely tactile and sensory experiments that get those fine and gross motor skills working. It is colourful, exciting and a little bit gooey.