Spring - long term bulb observation

Our bulb investigation has shown some great results. 

The bulb with three shoots has grown to a height of 33cm with one white flower and the other two shoots are still there. 

The little bulb is still growing, but has only reached 8cm, however it has 4 different shoots! 

The upside down bulb pushed itself out of the top of the pot and when we looked closely it had flowered underneath the soil so we have turned it to see if it would grow straight and it did - to a height of 31cm!  

The bulb in just water grew a lovely purple flower but only to a height of 16cm. 

The half bulb, the one in the cold and dark and the one in the bag have all shown no signs of new growth.   However the bulb in the dark has grown a 21cm shoot but it is yellow/white and with no sign of a flower. 

We dug up the bulb that we planted outside and found that is was beginning to grow, so we replanted it a bit nearer the surface to see if that changes anything.   

The bulb in the gravel has grown such long roots they have wrapped around the stones and it cannot be moved.  It has a green shoot showing too. 

The pictures below are from week 4 and week 5.

Spring Term - long term bulb observation 

We have been looking weekly at our bulbs and we have seen some real changes in some of them, but others have changed slowly or not at all.  

Take a look at our week 3 photos.  Some are almost in flower!  We are very excited about the upside down bulb which is showing signs of disturbing the soil quite dramatically.   We are disappointed that there is no sign from the bulb outside yet. 

Spring Term 1 - Learning about bulbs

Today Willow pupils took a good look at different types of bulbs.  They drew a dissected bulb and labelled the different parts.  

After they thought of questions about bulbs they would like to find the answer to by observing them over time. 

Here are our questions: 

Will the bulb grow in just water?

Will the bulb grow in the dark? 

Will the bulb grow without soil (on gravel)? 

Will the bulb grow upside down? 

Will the bulb grow in the cold (and dark  - fridge)? 

Which will grow the tallest?  (big bulb or small bulb)

Will it carry on growing in the packet it came in? 

Will half a bulb still grow? 

Will it grow outside? 

Sticky Situation! 

Willow watched how Naughty Nora (from Discovery Dog) got caught taking the chocolate because it melted when she sat on it and got stuck all over her face when she ate it too. 

We discussed how a material can change when it is heated.  They gave examples such as ice melts, snow melts, candles melt but cookie mixture becomes harder.   Each child held a chocolate button in their hand tightly to help us experience what happened to Naughty Nora.  We thought of different words to describe what happens when chocolate is heated and the children said that the chocolate had become: runny, soft, a liquid, sticky, squidgy, to name but a few. 

See the very sticky situations we got into in the photos below! 

Science - Billy's Hat 

Our Class Puppet Billy had been out in the rain with his woolly hat on thinking his hair would stay dry.  Instead it got very wet indeed!  He asked Willow Class to investigate which material would make a better, more waterproof hat.  He suggested a list of different materials for different reasons: paper (because it's easy to fold), paper towel (he thought the towel part might keep him dry), plastic (as it didn't work for Discovery Dog to mop up Naughty Nora's puddles), silver foil (because it's flexible and shiny) or felt fabric (because it's soft and comfy to wear).

Willow investigated them all using pipettes to measure out the water and blue paper towel underneath to see if the water went through the material or not. 

We found that the plastic and the foil were the most waterproof, however the felt fabric was also quite waterproof for a little while. 

Autumn Walk

Willow Class went on a walk to find signs of Autumn.  We also found that there were still some signs of summer because we saw a butterfly, insects and also flowers still blooming. 

We have found out that Autumn is the time when leaves fall from trees, hedgehogs begin to hibernate, birds migrate south and wasps (apart from the queen) die out, but most insects hide underground.  

Discovery Dog - Puddle Trouble

Willow Class helped Discovery Dog find the best material to absorb a puddle left by Naughty Nora after she had an accident.  To test fairly we cut the same size pieces of each material and used the same amount of water.  We correctly predicted that the sponge would absorb the most liquid, although the cloth and hand towel did a good job too!  The plastic did not absorb any water and the paper towel fell apart, although it did the job when we used lots of it to see if that would work.  Mrs Addison put the plate upside down over her head after the sponge to show that there was no water left!

Sorting and Classifying Materials

Willow class collected different objects and sorted them into hoops depending on what material they were made out of.  At first we got some wrong, then we realised that some objects were made of more than one material so the hoops needed overlapping.  The headings were: Metal, Wood, Plastic, Fabric and Other.