Physics Activities

We went to a great Physics activity day this week - we learnt all about Newtons laws of motion.

There were three activities to look at inertia - penny drop (pennies on an index card over a glass, hit the card out of the way and the pennies drop into the glass), spinning egg (spin a raw egg, place your finger on the top to stop it spinning then remove your finger and watch as the egg starts spinning again) and skateboard push (tape a lid to the top of a skateboard then place some counters in - push the skateboard and stop it suddenly and watch the counters keep moving)

 

For Newtons second law (F=MxA) we dropped a marble and a piece of screwed up paper (about the same size as a marble) into a pan of flour and saw which landed with the most force.

The third law involved two film canisters - one half filled with water and placed on the line then half filled the second with water and added half an Alka Seltzer.

Discussed buoyancy and water displacement. They first looked at why the plasticine ball sank and how much water it displaced,

then looked at how the same piece of plasticine could float - she explained how water pressure works against gravity to keep a boat afloat. They had to make the best boat they could and see how much 'cargo' it could carry - I think the best boat carried 41 screws.

There was an activity station to look at objects that float and sink.

Made static electricity (this took dedication - it was a lovely hot day but this mum wore a big jumper so she could do the activity)

Looked briefly at flight.

Made a Sundial and discussed the earth orbiting the sun

They finished with loads of games - my favourites were N-tropy and Polarity.