Today, Year 6 looked at the impact that increasing the voltage on a circuit had on the brightness of a bulb. We introduced switches and added batteries to ensure that we fully understood how to create a series circuit, made predictions then recorded our findings.

A simple but effective way to understand the more technical aspects of how electricity works.

Today, Year 6 explored reflection even further by linking Science to our history topic and building trench periscopes like the ones used in the First World War. We got a better understanding about how light travels in straight lines from a light source and is reflected off objects before reaching our eyes! Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side but we made the most of the classroom area to test them out.

Today, Year 6 began looking at reflection and used pieces of string and mirrors to predict which angle the light from a torch might reflect onto. We then tested those predictions using torches and mirrors. We discovered that, as light only travels in straight lines, the angle of reflection varied depending on the angle of the mirror to the light source.

Using liquorice allsorts, we worked together in groups to sort the sweets into different groups based on their characteristics. We found that there were different ways to sort the sweets. Some of the different characteristics we noticed were; the different shapes, the colours, the different sizes and also how many layers each sweet was made up of. It was a tasty way to discover classification!

Today, Year 6 began our Electrical Circuits topic. We explored a variety of electrical components and discussed what we already knew about how simple circuits work. We’ll be moving on to more complex series and parallel circuits next which should give us a truly electrical run up to Christmas!

In Year 6, we have been investigating how light travels in a straight line to the human eye. In-keeping with our current topic of the First World War, we made trench periscopes to experience what it would be like in a WW1 trench if a soldier wanted to have a look ‘over the top’ at the enemy lines. What a way to bring Science to life!

This week, Year 6 have began our Science topic of ‘Light’. We discovered that light only travels in straight lines and we used mirrors and string to predict the direction that light would travel in once it had been reflected off mirrors at various angles. We then tested our predictions using torches. A simple but fun investigation. Then we discussed how the direction of light can be changed using prisms through refraction and how prisms can split light into all the colours of the spectrum in the same way that water refracts light to create rainbows.