Yesterday we started working with Science task 4. We read the following objectives before we started, so that we knew what skills, knowledge and understanding we were trying to achieve during the activity.
Children will be able to
- Pose simple scientific questions
- Identify ways of finding out about scientific issues
- With help, conduct simple investigations
- Thinking about what will happen
- Using, with help, simple scientific equipment
- Observing what happens
- Comparing what happened with what they thought would happen
- Offering explanations for what happened, and why it happened
We connected the wires to the battery and the bulb to make a basic electrical circuit.
This is what it looked like. We then drew circuit diagrams to show what we had done.
We investigated what happened if we disconnected one of the wires from the battery, each wire in turn. We investigated what happened if we disconnected one of the wires from the bulb, each wire in turn. Every time we disconnected a wire the light went off and the bulb stopped shining. We discussed what happened and could state the following:
This happens because electricity flows like water in a circle (called a circuit). If the flow is broken at any point in the circuit, by disconnecting a wire, the flow of electricity stops and the bulb fails to light.
We then added a switch to our circuit.
We then had to draw a new circuit diagram, because we had changed our circuit.
A battery is a tiny container where we can store electricity. When it is connected to wires, electricity will flow from the battery through the wires. We tested, many times, to switch the light on and off, on and off. We discussed what happened to our circuit when we added a switch and we now know that:
The flow goes round and round, like a circle, until something stops it for example
- when the energy in the battery is all used up (a ‘flat’ battery) or
- when the circuit is broken by a switch or a loose wire.