Year 2 - Science

Introduction

At Eastfield we use an adapted version of ‘The Association for Science Education’ (ASE) planning documents. This approach creates a consistent engaging approach to teaching and learning in Science. Within our learning, scientific skills and vocabulary play a central role in pupils' learning.

Living Things and their Habitats (Biology)

Keywords we used:

living dead never been alive

suited suitable basic needs food food chain shelter move feed

habitat soil pond woodland desert field sea

animal creature minibeast

We began our unit of work by exploring the school garden, playground and the local park to find different animals and plants. We identified spiders, snails, a butterfly and an earwig! We also observed different types of plants such as a fig tree and oak trees. We recorded this data using a tally chart and a pictogram.

We then thought about the needs of living things, and how we can decide whether something is living, dead or has never been alive. Some of the items got us discussing with our partners, trying to explain our decisions:

"The fish is dead because it's like the roast chicken - it was alive but now it's dead because it has been cooked. People eat fish too!"

"No, I think the fish is alive because it is swimming in the ocean. It hasn't been taken out and cooked!"

We learnt the names of different habitats and thought about why certain animals are suited to that habitat e.g. fish have fins to swim in the ocean and gills to breathe underwater. Watching the Deadly 60 video below showed us how otters and the peregrine falcon are suited to their habitats.

Deadly 60 - Series 1: 13. United KingdomSteve spots otters with Terry Nutkins, and falls prey to the incredible peregrine falcon.

We used these ideas to design our own animals and explain how they were suited to their habitat. Take a look at our ideas below!

We used our imagination and creativity to make our own underwater habitat scenes. We learnt the names of the five oceans and thought about ways to protect them, such as recycling and reusing rubbish or old items so that they don't end up being thrown into the oceans.

Science KS1: The food chainThis short film for KS1 pupils describes food chains, explaining what consumers and producers are, and what can happen if a food chain is disrupted.

Finally, we learnt about how plants and animals depend on each other as part of a food chain. We looked at photos of different plants and animals to create food chains showing what gets eaten by who! We had to remember to choose plants and animals that live in the same type of habitat to make the food chains work. Here are some of them below.

Everyday Materials

(Chemistry)

Keywords we used:

materials properties suitability purpose

wood metal plastic glass brick rock paper cardboard

shiny dull smooth rough rigid flexible hard soft stretchy

waterproof absorbent strong weak transparent opaque

squash bend twist stretch

We started our topic by looking at a variety of materials and brainstorming their properties

We went on a material hunt around the school...

and found lots of objects made from different materials

We tested what materials would change shape by bending, twisting, stretching and squeezing.

Our results!

We had a fun-filled discussion about whether the materials our teacher suggested for the objects were well suited

What do you think?

Wooly shoes
Chocolate teapot
Glass bricks
Paper raincoat

Are they suitable materials?

Before our investigation to find a suitable material for Ted's raincoat, we made predictions.

Our investigation: A suitable material for Ted's raincoat.

For our investigation we decided to change one thing and keep one thing the same to make it fair. As we were using 5 different materials - tissue, plastic, kitchen roll, cardboard and fabric - we decided we to keep the amount of water we dropped on each surface the same. Using a pipette, we dropped 5 drops of water onto the surface of each material. We concluded that plastic was the most suitable material to make a raincoat as it was waterproof.