Year One had great fun making parachutes as part of our new theme ‘Splendid Skies’. During the summer term the children will learn about weather, the seasons and summer. We will begin by asking the question ‘what is weather?’ and use the children’s own experiences as the starting point for our discussions. They will observe and record the weather each day, measure the temperature and learn about wind speed.
As part of the theme in Science the children had great fun with a parachute experiment. Some children made large parachutes and some made smaller ones because we wanted to investigate if the size of the parachute affected the way it would fall to the ground. Before we tested our parachutes we predicted what would happen and used our reasoning skills to explain why. Some children thought that the large parachutes would fall faster than the smaller parachutes because they were heavier. Other children thought the large parachutes would fall more slowly because they would catch more air.
After testing our parachutes in the classroom we found that the smaller parachutes fell slower and straighter than the large parachutes. We then tested our parachutes outside to see if the same thing happened. We found that the smaller parachutes still fell more slowly but they didn’t fall in a straight line. After observing closely and thinking about why this happened we decided that the wind outside was blowing the parachutes and affecting how they fell.
Later in the week the children were fascinated to learn about Francis Beaufort and his scale to measure wind speed. During outdoor learning we observed the effects of the wind and tried to decide how strong the wind was using the numbers and descriptions on the Beaufort Scale. The children have all collaborated brilliantly and used some excellent communication skills to work together.
Categories: News Science Year 1
