In Class 1, we wanted to focus upon the word ‘investigate’:
We listened to the story of The Gingerbread Man. The children were given a Gingerbread Man each and used their senses to describe it.
We stopped the story at the point where the Gingerbread Man got to the river.
Question 1: What would happen to the Gingerbread Man in water? The children made their predictions and then we placed them into a container of water.
After 10 minutes we retuned and made observations about what had happened.
Were our predictions right?
The next question that Class 1 investigated was:
Question 2: What would happen to the Gingerbread Man if he fell into different puddles whilst running away?
We placed Gingerbread Men into ‘puddles’ of vegetable oil, orange juice and vinegar. Again, the children made suggestions as to what they thought might happen in the different liquids. After 5 minutes, the children returned to look closely at their Gingerbread Men. They all looked unchanged so then they touched them and found that the ones in oil were still very hard but the ones in the Orange juice and vinegar had gone very soft and mushy.
The final question for Class 1 built on some learning that we had done in the Summer term, about Floating and Sinking.
Question 3: Can you help the Gingerbread Man get across the river using Playdough?
We had a letter from a Gingerbread Man who needed our help to get across the river. The children were given a ball of playdough each and observed what happened when they placed this into the water. It sank.
We then talked about other things we could use. They wanted to make a raft each. These were much more successful.