1. Inquiry Learning
We looked at ‘Changes’ in Room 9
What ‘Changes’ do we notice when we
move from kindy to ‘big’ school?
How do the seasons change?
How does matter change when we
heat it or cool it? We chose to heat
and cool things from the kitchen!
YUM!
2. Changes
What changes do we notice when we warm water into jelly crystals?
The sugar dissolved and the gelatine turned ‘wobbly’ when the mixture cooled in the fridge.
Yum! It was great to sit and eat it outside!
3. Changes
What changes do we notice when we heat popcorn?
There is water inside the corn and when it gets hot, it boils and causes the corn seed to POP! That’s
how we end up having yummy fluffy popcorn to eat as a treat!
Yum! It was great to do some Maths with it too! We took ten pieces of popcorn and ate 1 piece
and then there were 9 pieces left! We kept going until there were no pieces left! What fun Maths!
4. Changes
What changes do we notice when we mix flour with cold water and boiling water?
What happens when we mix oil with cold water and hot water?
What happens when you put margarine into hot water and cold water?
When we poured the flour into the glass of cold
water, it made the water go cloudy and then it
floated to the bottom of the glass and did not
mix with the water.
BUT
What changes do we notice when we mix flour The flour in the hot water turned all thick and
with cold water and boiling water? sticky and clung to the glass. We made glue!
The hot water made the starch swell.
The oil that was poured into the glass with cold
water floated back up to the top even after we
had stirred it and mixed it up. This is because
the oil is lighter than water and so floats to the
top. We spoke about how fish and sea birds get
covered in oil when it leaks out of ships.
What happens when we mix oil with cold water BUT
and hot water?
The oil that was poured into the hot water
made the water go a little cloudy, but then the
oil also floated up to the top of the water. The
oil couldn’t mix with the water.
We say that oil is less dense than water. That’s
why it floats on top!
We put a blob of margarine into a glass of cold
water and it just floated to the top. We worked
out that the margarine is lighter than the water
so that is why it floats.
BUT
What happens when you put margarine into When we dropped the margarine into the hot
hot water and cold water? water it melted. Then, we noticed that when
the water cooled, the margarine started to
become solid (hard) again and floated up to the
top.
Margarine is like oil, but it is in a more solid
form.
5. Changes
We wanted to find out whether an ice cube would melt faster on the concrete, or in a foil meat
tray, or in a plastic cup or in paper cup!
This is what we predicted. We sat and waited and watched!
11 children said that the ice cube would melt fast
on the concrete, 3 in the meat tray on the
concrete, 4 in the plastic cup on the concrete
and 3 in the paper cup on the concrete!
We found out that the ice cube on the concrete
melted the fastest because the concrete was hot
from the sun.
The ice cubes in the foil meat trays melted the
second fastest. We realised that this is because
the hot concrete heated up the foil.
Then, the ice cubes in the plastic cups were third.
We realised that the plastic was quite thin so the
heat from the concrete penetrated the cup.
Finally, the ice cubes in the paper cups took
longer to melt because the paper that the cup
was made out of was quite thick and so the
heat from the concrete didn’t heat it up. We
also thought that because the cup was deep,
the sun couldn’t shine into the cup!
The fastest melting actually happened when we
popped a piece of ice into our mouths and the
heat from our mouths melted it!
6. Changes
We made ice cream too! When you beat cream and condensed milk together and put it into an
ice cream machine, it goes smooth and creamy AND when you freeze the mixture, you have the
yummiest ice cream! We used this simple recipe because some children have allergies.
So this is what we found out... the liquids turn into solids when you freeze them. But...you have to
gobble them up quickly otherwise the ingredients melt when they get hot and turn into liquids
again!
cream condensed milk
ice cream machine
Yummy! What a treat! Some children said that
it tasted like white chocolate!