Working Scientifically (Key Concepts)
- Raise different types of questions about scientific occurrences, e.g. What will happen if…; How does…; If I change…will…
- Plan and carry out comparative and fair tests, making systematic and careful observations.
- Take measurements using a range of scientific equipment with increasing accuracy and precision, e.g. force meters, measuring cylinders, timers, iPad video recording equipment, batteries, bulbs, wires and crocodile clips, different materials, thermometers, weighing scales, magnets, funnels, filter paper, sieves, bowls, plants.
- Plan a range of science enquiries, including comparative and fair tests, e.g. Testing air resistance, water resistance, friction on different surfaces and measuring forces.
- Use and develop keys to identify, classify and describe living things & materials, e.g. classifying plants, comparing and grouping materials, planet identification key, classifying animals recap.
- Record data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams, labels, classification keys, tables, bar and line graphs and models, e.g. phases of the moon, labelling parts of a flower, classification key of the planets.
- Identify patterns within their data to draw conclusions and justify their findings. Begin to recognise how scientific ideas change over time, e.g. air resistance and water resistance investigation.
Animals including Humans
- Describe the changes as humans develop to old age.
Living Things and their Habitats
- Describe the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird.
- Describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.
Earth and Space
- Describe the movement of the Earth and other planets relative to the sun in the solar system.
- Describe the movement of the moon relative to the Earth.
- Describe the sun, Earth and moon as roughly spherical bodies.
- Use the idea of the Earth’s rotation to explain day and night and the apparent movement of the sun across the sky.
Forces
- Explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object.
- Identify the effects of air resistance, water resistance and friction, that act between moving surfaces.
- Recognise that some mechanisms including levers, pulleys and gears allow a smaller force to have a greater effect.
Everyday Materials
- Compare and group together everyday materials on the basis of their properties, e.g. hardness, solubility, transparency, conductivity (electrical and thermal), and response to magnets.
- Know that some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, describe how to recover a substance from a solution.
- Use knowledge of solids, liquids & gases to decide how mixtures might be separated, e.g. through filtering, sieving and evaporating.
- Give reasons, based on evidence from tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic.
- Demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes.
- Explain that some changes result in the formation of new materials, and that this kind of change is not usually reversible, including changes associated with burning and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda.