On Monday, Year 5 spent the afternoon exploring how forces could be used to help make life easier.   One of the activities involved the children thinking about how friction can be useful in creating fire!

Every child had a go at using a flint and steel to make their own little fire.  It was great to see the perseverance shown by many of them as well as collaboration when someone was finding it tricky.  The sense of accomplishment and pride when they managed to get the cotton wool to burn was amazing to witness!

Alongside fire-lighting, the children realised that the hammocks used friction when tied to the tree so that the rope didn’t slip down.  They tested how many children were able to sit in the hammock and were surprised at how good the friction was!

The children also explored using objects in the woodland as levers to create a seesaw which doubled up as a catapult. Even with just a small amount of force, they were able to send a ball into the air, and with some careful manoeuvring and teamwork, they tried to balance the seesaw off the ground.

Alongside this, the children used differing amounts of force on mini-catapults to fire at targets and tried making a basic pulley system out of ropes and a tree to easily lift a huge tyre in the air! 

There were lots of scientific discussions, and it was great to get out and about exploring forces in context!