For the next little while we will be looking at “Light and Sound” – first in a scientific way with a visit from the CSIRO Labs on Legs where we are looking forward to some more great hands on activities and experiments to do.

To get ready for this visit we spent a beautiful and sunny afternoon exploring what we already knew about light and shadows.

First up we played “Shadow Tag” outside in the playground. The person who was “it” had to catch the other kids by stamping on their shadow.

We decided that the trick was to make sure that the person who was “it” was always between you and the sun. If you did this, then it was nearly impossible for “it” to reach your shadow.

This was because our bodies blocked the light from the sun, causing a shadow behind us. If “it” was between you and the sun then your shadow was too far away from “it” for him to reach!

We also tried to make numbers and letters using our shadows – can you see the numbers and letters that we made with our bodies?

Inside, we used the OHP as the light source to make shadow animals with our hands. We also used other objects from around the room to experiment with shadows as well.

Some people were really clever at making interesting patterns and creatures with their hands.

Sam from the CSIRO showed us many fantastic tricks and experiments all about forces and motion. Learning about forces and motion means we are studying physics -and it was great fun and very interesting.

We rode skateboards, lifted heavy objects (and teachers) with no hands, twirled discs, made bridges and even got to sit on a chair of nails.

Did you know that:

• if you go fast on a bike, it’s less likely that the bike will fall over?
• if you squash a balloon across 500 nails it will not burst ….. but if you push just one nail into a balloon it WILL burst? 
• you can’t pull someone on a skateboard with your feet off the ground!
• when you are pulling you are actually pushing! (You push your feet into the ground whilst you are actually pulling  something )
• a small kid can lift a large adult easy as you like if the kid uses a lever (like a see-saw)?
• friction keeps cars on the road as do studs on footy boots?

We were able to do many experiments to see how chemicals and substances reacted when mixed. We looked at acids and alkalines, we measured temperature changes, we made slime and mixed, observed and predicted what might happen next.

We think that we will explore Cool Chemistry further, back in class for the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

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We tasted, looked, thought, poked, timed, ran, balanced, took apart, put together, moved, spat, sniffed, read, laughed, talked, hypothesised, tested, and had heaps of fun.

Here are some photos we took on the day.