Physics Day at Oakwood

On Thursday 15th November, Oakwood pupils became physicists for a time. Each year group explored various aspects of physics with practical activities.

Mr Taylor performed 3 excellent experiments to demonstrate the effects of air pressure and how aeroplanes actually fly.

Year R explored the forces of gravity, magnetism and water; 
Year 1 explored floating and sinking; 
I had the pleasure of teaching Year 2 about gravity and friction. They made accurate predictions and talked about the results they observed with great understanding. They also grasped the concept of fair testing; Year 3 explored light including refraction and linking to understanding of materials by creating shadow puppets in 3CB:

"Light travels as a wave. When you put your shadow puppet in between the lamp and the wall, the puppet blocks some of the light waves.

The closer you put your shadow puppet to the lamp, the more light waves are blocked. This makes a bigger shadow. Moving the shadow puppet away from the lamp makes a smaller shadow as fewer light waves are blocked."

Year 5 investigated the effects of air resistance and friction with balloon cars.

Finally, Year 6 created periscopes to explore the law of reflection and combined a little chemistry with electronics. Potato battery anyone?

The children all loved getting stuck in to science today. We are looking forward to the next science day in the spring term, which will be biology based.