This week, Year 5 had an exciting opportunity to become real scientists as we explored one of our Forces topics—friction! The children were eager to head outside, especially with the lovely weather, and they made the most of every moment.
To investigate how friction affects movement, we set up a series of ramps made from different materials such as cardboard, plastic, sandpaper and fabric. Each group chose a toy car and carefully released it from the top of each ramp, measuring the distance it travelled across the playground surface. The children quickly realised that different materials create different amounts of friction, which made the cars travel further—or not very far at all!
What made this investigation even more special was how engaged the children were. They worked brilliantly in teams, shared ideas, and made accurate measurements to compare results—just like real physicists. There was a wonderful buzz of excitement as they predicted outcomes, tested their ideas and discussed why the toy car travelled further on smoother surfaces and slowed down on rougher ones.
This practical learning linked perfectly to our Year 5 Forces objectives, helping the children understand how friction acts against motion and how surfaces affect the speed and distance of moving objects. It was fantastic to see them apply scientific vocabulary with confidence and make thoughtful conclusions based on evidence from their experiments.
A huge well done to Year 5 for your enthusiasm, teamwork and curiosity—you turned a sunny morning into a brilliant scientific adventure!
