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Small or far away?
Experiment with your perception of distance and size by making the amazing Ames room illusion.
We know that a toy car is much smaller than a real one, but when you hold a car up to your eye and compare it to a car in the distance, they can look the same size.
We intuitively understand this, but thinking about why this happens is the start of a fun experiment to investigate how our brains make sense of the three dimensional world around us. In the video, Dwain and Sahara learn a simple trick to make their drawings look three-dimensional, and then build an Ames room: a classic illusion that plays a trick on your mind with strange proportions.
Click on the picture to watch the video.
Follow this guide to explore this illusion at home.
Make your drawings look three-dimensional, and build an Ames room illusion.
Experiment with your ability to recognise how small or far away things are.
Learn how we make assumptions about size and distance based on experience.
Equipment
Paper
A ruler
Pencils
Ames room template (there's a colour one or a black and white one, if to save ink!) printed on stiff paper, or glued to card (download below)
Scissors
Glue
Two small toys, lego figures are ideal.
Download the info sheet.
EDIBLE BUTTERFLY LIFE CYCLE
This fun and creative activity helps children visualise a Butterfly Life Cycle by encouraging them to think of edible items to represent each stage of the cycle.
THE BUTTERFLY LIFE CYCLE
There are four stages in the life cycle of a butterfly which can take anywhere between one month to a whole year!
STAGE 1 - BUTTERFLY EGG
The first stage is the egg. Butterfly eggs are very small and round or oval. If you look carefully you might even see a teeny tiny caterpillar growing inside them! The actual shape of the egg depend on the type of butterfly inside. Butterfly eggs are laid on leaves.
STAGE 2 - CATERPILLAR ( LARVA )
We call butterfly larva caterpillars and it is these that hatch from the tiny eggs in stage 1. Caterpillars mostly eat!Did you know that mother butterflies lay their eggs on a type of leaf their caterpillars will like? This is because caterpillars cannot easily travel to find a source of food they like.
The skin of a caterpillar doesn't grow with the caterpillar so they shed their skin several times as they grow.
The caterpillars you can see below are from an Insect Lore Butterfly World set. I would 100% recommend getting it, releasing the adult butterflies into the world was just amazing!
STAGE 3 - CHRYSALIS ( PUPA )
Once the caterpillar is fully grown it forms a pupa or chrysalis around itself. Inside the chrysalis a transformation called metamorphosis occurs.
STAGE 4 - BUTTERFLY
Once the process of metamorphosis is complete the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis!
Female adult butterflies reproduce and lay eggs on leaves ready for the life cycle to start again.
EGG - CATERPILLAR - CHRYSALIS - BUTTERFLY
HOW TO MAKE AN EDIBLE BUTTERFLY LIFE CYCLE
WHAT YOU'LL NEED
Marshmallows, yoghurt raisins - eggs
Sweet Caterpillars, spring onion - caterpillars - you could use two different sizes here to show how the caterpillar grows.
Liquorice, long marshmallows, physalis - chrysalis.
Pasta bows, orange segments - butterfly
Paper plate
INSTRUCTIONS FOR BUTTERFLY LIFE CYCLE
Look at all the items you have available and find the best match for each life cycle stage.
Place the items in the correct order on a paper plate and add arrows to show the direction of change.
Ask a friend if they can tell what each stage represents.
Caterpillars often shed their skin and eat lots of leaves, can you add these stages into your life cycle.
EXTENSION IDEAS
Can you make a fruit and vegetable version of the butterfly life cycle?
Send us a photo of your finished plate.
Slimetastic Fun - (The Easy Way)
There are so many ways to make slime. With this one you won't need to go in search of crazy chemicals, you probably already have everything that you need. Ready?... then let's get started.
What do I need?
- Food Colouring
- Cornflour ("normal" flour won't do the trick)
- 2 Cups
- Spoon
- Water
- Maybe some kitchen roll to clean up!
How do I do it?
STEP1 - Add a few drops of food colouring to half a cup of water (real slime is always green!)
STEP2 - Fill another cup one quarter of the way with cornflour
STEP3 - SLOWLY! Add a few drops of the water at a time to the cornflour and mix it all together with your hand.
STEP4 - Keep adding a few drops at a time, then stirring the slime untilyou get a slimey mess! If you add too much water you'll get something too watery! If that happens add some more cornflour.
STEP5 - Enjoy your slime!What's going on?
The beautiful slime is known as a "Non-Newtonian fluid". That just means it's not really a liquid or a solid (it's kind of both and kind of neither).
More Fun Please! - Experiment like a real scientist!
- Experiment with your slime. Try prodding it with your finger quickly and it will feel hard like a solid or if you pour it across your hands slowly it will feel like a liquid.
- Try making different coloured slimes.
- Try and make the 'perfect slime' with different amounts of water!
IMPORTANT! When you are done with your slime, not for some time I'm sure! - Don't pour it down the drain. The slime will separate back into cornflour and water and this can clog the pipes. Just wrap it in some paper and put it in the bin. (If you can bring yourself to!)
Ready to bounce?
We also set up the egg in vinegar experiment. We've left them in a safe place and will check what happens tomorrow.
You have probably walked or ridden over a bridge at some point.
In this engineering activity you will design and make bridges out of folded pieces of paper, and test how much weight they can hold with pennies.
How does the shape of a bridge affect its strength?
Video
Click on picture to watch video
Paper Bridges
Class 3 had a fun morning exploring paper bridges. We used small multilink instead of coins.
One sheet of paper could support 8 multilink cubes. We fold the paper which made our bridges stronger. Two sheets could hold 23 cubes. Then we watched the two videos which gave us ideas on how to improve our bridges. Star of the day was RJ whose bridge held 243 cubes! What a result!
