This Is Rocket Science and science at home
- Laura Hutchinson Posted On Aug 6, 2018 | Learn
Hello, my name is Emma and I write the blog Science Sparks. Learning Resources kindly asked me to share some tips about how to get children involved with science at home and tell you all about my brand new book, This Is Rocket Science!!
My children and I had a great time working together to design and create the activities in the book, it was a real family effort. People often ask me how I think of ideas for Science Sparks, but the truth is most of the activities come from questions my children ask and then one thing tends to lead on to another.By actively exploring science at home you are changing youngsters’ perception of science, supporting their learning, and having fun all at the same time! Science based activities encourage the development of core skills from logical thinking and problem solving, right through to communication skills. But if you are lost for where to start when it comes to science play at home, then read on for my top pointers.
My children and I had a great time working together to design and create the activities in the book, it was a real family effort. People often ask me how I think of ideas for Science Sparks, but the truth is most of the activities come from questions my children ask and then one thing tends to lead on to another.By actively exploring science at home you are changing youngsters’ perception of science, supporting their learning, and having fun all at the same time! Science based activities encourage the development of core skills from logical thinking and problem solving, right through to communication skills. But if you are lost for where to start when it comes to science play at home, then read on for my top pointers.Tops tips for getting children involved in science at home
Be inspired
Many of our activities are inspired by books. For example, we've made bridges for The Gingerbread Man, underpants for Aliens, a zip wire for Jack (and the beanstalk) and houses for the Three Little Pigs. So my first top tip is to read a book together and then work on an idea to solve a problem for the characters.For older children, try a non-fiction book and work to demonstrate something. For example use a prism to split light into the colours of the rainbow.Work together
Science projects are a great way to learn together whilst working as a team. You could work on a tricky project together or try something more simple independently and then come together to share your results.A great project to work together on is something like our viscosity race. In This Is Rocket Science a viscosity investigation is used to demonstrate lava flows on Venus. You can see we found our Learning Resources test tubes and holder very handy for this activity. The test tubes are easy to hold and generously sized making them perfect for holding our test liquids! We also used one of the handy stopwatches to time how long each liquid took to flow between the lines.Get Creative!
If you have a child who loves art projects our filter paper chromatography planets are sure to be a winner. Simply draw small dots on a piece of filter paper and use a dropper to drip water onto the ink spots. Watch the colours spread through the filter paper and leave to dry. For a longer project try to create a filter paper picture to match each planet of the solar system.
Build It!The Bright Basics™ Slide and Splash Spouts comes with three colourful pipes, two of which are different sizes. Each of the pipes come with suction cups so that you can stick them to the bath. This makes it super easy for kids to slide the pieces around, so that they can build themselves a route.Evie loved becoming a little engineer and had lots of fun designing different routes with the pipes. The idea is to set up a route that allows the 'Itsy Bitsy' spider ball to run through the pipes and the spinning faucet, all the way to the end. You can encourage its movement by pouring water through the pipes using the sun cup.I really enjoyed watching Evie experiment, make predictions and learn all about trial and error with this toy. Just by playing with this toy she’s already building on her early maths and science skills without even realising it!The first time we played with it, we planned and designed a route together. We planned where each pipe would go and then we watched which way the water flowed to try to work out how to get the ball through all of the pipes and if we needed to make changes. Evie found it so tricky at first but seeing her think, experiment and put together the puzzle was a lot of fun to see. This was also amazing for encouraging discussion, developing fine motor skills and for recognising cause and effect. After the first go, Evie wanted to try building several different routes by herself and she did so well.Sense It!Another fun way you can play with this is toy is by playing a ‘Sense It’ game. This particular game is great for very younger kids as you can use the sprinkler cup to pour the water onto your child's hands. They can then try and catch the water. As Evie is older we used both a pipe and the sprinkler cup to pour water onto her hands. I then asked Evie to talk about the differences in feeling, which encouraged a lot of discussion. I also loved using the sprinkler cup to talk to Evie about rain and how the water collects in clouds and then sprinkles down on us. She then used this idea to make it rain down the pipes on the spider ball.Sing It!This encouraged another way to play with the Bright Basics™ Slide & Splash Spouts toy; singing. This is also a game that is encouraged in the toys main activity guide.The Itsy Bitsy Spider ball that comes with the Bright Basics™ Slide & Splash Spouts toy, has been cleverly named after the famous nursery rhyme. During one of our play sessions I started singing the nursery rhyme and as I did I tried to push the ball back up one of the spouts.Evie grinned and instantly took over and role played the song with the Itsy Bitsy Spider ball. She made him climb up the pipe and then when he reached the top, she filled the rain cloud with water. She then used the rain cloud to pour water down the pipes so that it would push the 'Itsy Bitsy' spider ball back out again. Then she picked up the sun cup to 'dry up all the rain' and pushed the spider ball all the way back up to the top again.For smaller children, singing the nursery rhyme will help to encourage their listening skills and language development. It's also such a fun way of learning with this toy.Once you've finished play time, the Bright Basics™ Slide & Splash Spouts can be tidied away into a mesh bag which comes in to the box. This can then be hung to dry when it's not in use. 
Build It!The Bright Basics™ Bath Blocks comes with a large floating base and lots of bricks and accessories that can be stacked and built on top the floating the base. The idea is to make a 
Imaginative Play!The 
Build it!The second way you can play with this toy is by building with it. Using the shape pieces and the construction pieces, your child can you put together a building on your bathtub wall. This gave me the opportunity to discuss shapes a lot more with Evie as she built different structures on our the wall of our bath.Every time she picked up a piece to add to her building, I asked her to tell me what makes each shape unique. For example; a square has four sides the same. I then encouraged her to discuss the difference between a square and rectangle. I loved hearing her thoughts on this.If your child is a bit younger than Evie though, they can simply play with this toy by building different structures, which will help them to develop fine motor skills. You can then use this opportunity to help you to teach your child the name of shapes and to encourage shape recognition.Sing It!The final way we loved playing with this toy is by singing yet another new nursery rhyme. Singing is particularly good, especially for younger kids. This time the Bright Basics™ team encourage you to sing the 'One, Two, Buckle My Shoe' song. Singing this song helps to reinforce patterns and number recognition and generally makes play time with this bath toy a lot more fun.
Our ThoughtsThank you so much to Learning Resources for sending us these three bath toys to review. My favourite thing about all three of these toys is that they all combine both learning and 
After a short whole class session, I left Botley out during our coding session on the computers and children freely chose to come and play. They set up their own mazes and challenged each other to code Botley.How did Botley support learning in the classroom?Botley is a perfect way to introduce and develop coding with this age group (4 – 6). They absolutely loved how Botley looked and were so engaged in the activity. Everyone wanted a turn and were sad when we had to put it away for lunch! ‘Coding’ can be a tricky concept to explain to young children but is a requirement of the National Curriculum and essential for our modern technology, so Botley helps children to learn in a simple effective way.Do you believe Botley is innovative? Yes, I haven’t seen any other products like this that offer so many features. You can begin to teach coding with Botley but because of the range of features he offers it enables you to build on the learning and introduce more complex features and coding such as the object detection. Also, the hand held remote is a great addition as it really helped my younger children to look at the directions and position. One of them worked out they could turn the remote to match the way Botley was facing and this helped them to understand the way that he needed to go or turn.
Do you feel Botley has a positive impact? I have a child in my class who does not have any speech. For her, this made the activity fully inclusive as it was so-hands on and active. She could show everyone which way she thought ‘Botley’ needed to go by showing the cards or the arrows on the remote.Do you feel Botley supports your role as a teacher? Yes, it’s a fantastic resource to introduce coding to the children. They can be very hands-on and active, learning the ideas of ‘coding’ before they try more complex coding programmes on the computer or ipad. Everything comes in the box that you need so it doesn’t take any time at all to plan and set up.What would you say are the greatest benefits of Botley, both to you as the teacher and to your students?
Does Botley offer any support for SEND pupils? If yes, please explain why. Yes, as explained above for the little girl that I have in my class, but also because the product is so engaging and hands-on it would be perfect for many children with SEND. It is very simple to use and all the children quickly picked up on how to use it.How would you rate the long-term appeal of Botley, both to you as the teacher, and to your students?Very good. I would definitely purchase some of these for the school. As computing subject lead and teaching the younger children, this product is what I had been looking for.Do you feel Botley is unique or different from other resources in the subject area? Please provide details.Yes, I feel it is unique with the range of features offered such as the object identification and also the hand held remote. The hand held remote made it much easier to use with a whole class as it could be passed around rather than the children having to follow the robot around to be able to programme it.How cost effective is Botley is in terms of the educational aims it achieves?Very cost effective. Everything comes in one box and it seems like the product would last a long time. These are the children’s comments: “A very good robot.”“Helps us learn about coding.”“A very good friend because he helps us learn about robots and controlling.”“‘We can control Botley with a remote which makes it easier.”“Botley is cute. The eyes are cute and I like the colours.”“Botley is amazing because I can make it put the ball in the goal!”“Botley helps us to learn to share because we took it in turns.” The final ScoreFun factor - 5Educational benefits - 4Ease of use - 5 
Amy and her three year old daughter have enjoyed playing with 
The 
We also love sitting down with the 
I’ve since ordered more from Learning Resources as I love it all so much but rather than bombard my child with them all at once, I’m just introducing them slowly so she focuses on them individually and learns how to play with them first.They are also perfect for gifts as they are so unique and different to other toys on the market.I’m so pleased to have been introduced to this wonderful toy company and hope I can help spread the word to everyone who has a child to buy a gift for. I will definitely be coming back for more!” 
