Why does the day length change?

Following on from our earlier post, we completed the table and wrote up our results - based on knowledge they'd picked up in the meantime from books and discussions...

So even though their predictions were correct - the days, i.e. hours of daylight, became shorter - their reason to do with temperature wasn't correct. So to encourage scientific thinking, we took this experiment further by deciding to measure the temperature over the next week and see if it's also getting colder. (Hopefully there'll be some fluctuation rather than a continuous drop! But if not, it'll just lead to another discussion so it's all good. 😁) I was pleased the girls understood that because they know for definite the days are getting shorter, if the reason for their prediction was correct then the temperature will be colder each day too... If the temperature goes up and the day length doesn't get longer then it means temperature isn't the cause! And when I say understood, I just had to ask, "What should happen to the temperature each day if the day length only gets shorter because it's colder and longer when it's hotter?" and they just went ahead and explained the above to me themselves. 👍 Masha'Allah!

We bought a couple of ethanol thermometers from Amazon for the girls to use. They simply needed to stand in the garden at around the same time each day (depending on our schedule!) and then record it on the poster. Using the thermometers was a good experience too: practising reading scales, an awareness of negative numbers, knowing the bulb end is the part which measures so to make sure to hold it from the middle/other end, that it takes a little time for the red line to move so they need to wait before reading it. I've explained it simply that when it's hot the liquid inside the red line gets bigger and when it's cold the liquid shrink - which they seem happy enough with for now! 👌

So from our results, they came to the conclusion that the temperature getting colder definitely wasn't the reason for the day length decreasing as the season changes from Summer to Winter - because, look! The temperature went up and down each day but the day length was always getting shorter!

Recording the Weather

Linking together our work on measurement from Numeracy and the weather in Science, we talked about different weather types and ways we could measure (i.e. record) them:

We then put this on the wall underneath our Prediction/Results posters so we could use it as a quick reference as and when the weather changed and we felt like measuring it!

The first weather type we ended up doing was rain, which we measured by leaving a couple of measuring cylinders in the garden on a rainy day then bringing them inside at the end of the day to see how much rain had been collected. ☔

How long is a day?

Yr1 NC Science target: Observe and describe how day length varies

I decided to have the girls look outside at the same time every morning and evening for a couple of weeks, so they could see if the sky always looks the same - either day or night or in between - or if it changes as time passes... With the time of year being as it is, 7am and 7pm fit in perfectly as sunrise and sunset are both due to cross over the 7 o' clock mark over the next couple of weeks. This will not only let them see the daytime span shorten for themselves, but it reinforces their ability to tell the time and teaches them diligence in remembering to keep their record twice daily! They're waking up themselves around 6:30am and their bedtime is just after 7pm, so the timings work out well for us too - to do it last thing before bed and leave it out ready to fill in in the morning.

After explaining to them what the investigation was going to be, we used our Science wall display to help write a prediction. First, with some prompting, they told me all the information they already knew. Then they used this to predict what they thought would happen. Even though Twin 2's response was a lot wordier lol, they both thought the same thing - that the day length is related to the temperature! So once we have our results, this will lead on nicely to looking at seasonal changes in terms of the Earth's orbit and how we get day and night in the first place, insha'Allah. 😂

You can download our worksheet here.

Seasons-Weather Match

Our next Science topic is Seasonal Changes. They've covered many of the NC targets for Year 1 naturally just through everyday conversations, so now it's just a case of filling in the gaps.

Today's target was to "observe and describe weather associated with the seasons."

I began by simply asking the twins how many different types of weather they could think of and wrote these on the whiteboard as they said them. Next, I gave them each a sheet of paper with pictures (found from Google) to represent 9 different weather patterns on it:

I asked them which weathers on the sheet were missing from our list and gave them clues for the ones they struggled with - namely the middle one and the last two! The pictures show: sunny, raining, snowing, windy, overcast, cloudy, stormy, fog, hailing. So by the end we had all 9 words on the whiteboard. They didn't know what hail was at all, so we found some videos on YouTube to watch before continuing. The others they'd either experienced or read about in books (they remembered this Biff & Chip book from last year!).

Next, I gave them a template so they could match the weather to the season they think it happens in the most, e.g. it can be sunny all year round, but which season do they think has the most days of sunny weather? Summer! And sometimes it can snow in Spring, but which season has the most snow? Winter! So they glued the pictures in the boxes, explaining to me why they thought they went where... e.g. I told them storms are made when there's hot air so they decided to match stormy to Summer, and I told them fog is cold air so they matched it to Winter... Windy they put in Autumn because it made them think of leaves blowing around and the leaves fall off the trees in Autumn!

We also took this opportunity to revise some of the Arabic we've learnt, i.e. the season names which are on the worksheet and weather patterns which we did verbally ("the weather is good/hot/sunny/cold", "rain", "snow", "wind", "I feel hot/cold") ***EDIT TO ADD ARABIC TEXT***

You can download our worksheet here.