Very few mammals can imitate speech, but scientists in the Netherlands have found that baby seals just a few weeks old can change the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above other noises. This suggests that seals may be the best species to help us understand the mystery of speech.
Recently, researchers at St Andrew’s University taught a seal to sing the Star Wars theme song!
Fill your child with science wonder with a subscription to Whizz Pop Bang, the award-winning magazine for 6 to 12-year-olds. Watch their face light up with glee when their very own magazine zooms through the letterbox! Packed full of hands-on science awesomeness, it’s the gift that keeps of delighting, month after month.
Are you looking for inspiring planning resources for teaching the Stone Age in lower key stage 2? Here’s how you can use our new downloadable Stone Age teaching resources to easily create a memorable lesson that produce the sticky knowledge that Ofsted will be looking for…
Where to start?
Before you use our lesson pack, pupils should already know when the Stone Age period was, what a fossil is and be familiar with the job of an archaeologist.
Pupils will get to do the job of an archaeologist during the lesson by excavating their own fake Stone Age poo! This is definitely a lesson your class will not forget! Before the lesson, follow our recipe to make enough fake poos for each child in your class.
Before they are ready to be an archaeologist, pupils will need to know what Stone Age people ate and how scientists know this information – from excavating coprolites (fossilised poo!). The PowerPoint presentation included in the pack explains this in a child-friendly way.
Pupils won’t forget the types of food they pulled out from their fake Stone Age poo! It’s a great way to create sticky knowledge for both History and Science.
We have a whole issue dedicated to the Stone Age, which is full of fun facts and information suitable for primary-aged children. Our teachers have created three reading comprehensions with questions linked to the National Curriculum and Curriculum for Excellence:
A non-chronological report on Smilodon
Explanation text about Stonehenge
Interview with an archaeologist
We also have a bank of spectacular science images that are perfect for promoting discussion. They feature a striking scientific image, along with a couple of questions. As you click through the PowerPoint presentation, the answers to the questions will be revealed. Pupils should try to answer the questions as you go. The presentation to use for Stone Age is called ‘High Five’. It only takes ten minutes so it can slot into those awkward times in the school day; for example, straight after lunch while you are waiting for everyone to come in.
Whizz Pop Bang magazine and teaching resources are brilliant ways to enhance your school’s science teaching:
We provide downloadable science lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, hands-on investigations and science reading comprehensions written by primary school teachers.
Whizz Pop Bang teaching resources link to the National Curriculum, ensuring correct coverage.
All of our resources are year group specific, ensuring progression between the years.
We make cross-curricular links to other subjects, such as English, Maths, History, Geography, Art, Design and Technology and PSHE.
Prices from as little as £190 per year for a copy of Whizz Pop Bang magazine through the post each month and whole-school access to our ever-growing library of downloadable teaching resources, with unlimited teacher logins.
We’ve also just launched a new individual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing downloadable resources for just £20 for the whole year.
Explore glow-in-the-dark science with PUTTY, SLIME, CRYSTALS AND MORE!
The days are getting shorter and the nights are drawing in but fear not, this fun STEM kit from Bandai is sure to brighten any dark evening! Inquisitive minds will love discovering the world of glow-in-the-dark by making glowing slime and growing their own crystals! We’ve got THREE Glow-in-the-Dark Mega Science Kits to give away!
The National Geographic Glow-in-the-Dark Mega Science Kit is an astounding collection of experiments and activities that all glow when the lights are out! Inside the kit, you’ll find a crystal growing set that produces a glow-in-the-dark crystal specimen you can proudly display.
There are two DIY slime packs in this kit as well, allowing you to mix and play with your own glow-in-the-dark purple and green slime! And glow-in-the-dark putty will astound kids as they use the included UV light keychain to draw pictures and words that glow when the lights are off!
There is so much included in this Mega Kit: one glowing crystal seed, two DIY slime powders in glowing green and glowing purple, two slime containers, one glowing putty in a storage tin, one wernerite rock, one UV light, and a full-colour learning guide that takes you through each experiment step by step.
No one knows exactly when humans began using fire, but it was probably over a million years ago. At first, people probably used natural wildfires. Later, they learned to start their own fires by hitting rocks together to make sparks, or by rubbing dry sticks until they got hot enough to burn.
See for yourself how Stone Age people started fires!
To celebrate Black History Month and Mae Jemison’s birthday on 17th October, we’re giving away a free sample page from Whizz Pop Bang magazine – a feature all about engineer, doctor, astronaut, dancer and scientist, Dr Mae Jemison.
And that’s not all… if you’re looking for primary science teaching resources or reading comprehensions, you’re in luck. Keep scrolling to find a heap of resources linked to this biography text!
Find out more about this teaching resource that’s perfect to use during Black History Month:
A biography text for year 3 and P4, linking to the topics animals including humans and body systems and cells, on the remarkable scientist Mae Jemison. Mae Jemison trained to be a dancer, engineer, scientist and astronaut! Mae also spends lots of time teaching and encouraging young people to become scientists, no matter what their background. She wants us all to reach for the stars, and she is still doing this herself by leading a project to develop the science and engineering needed to travel to a different solar system in the next 100 years. Mae doesn’t want anyone to be left out.
Year groups: Year 3 and P4 Topics: Animals including humans
This downloadable reading pack includes:
An A3 reading spread for you to print.
Reading comprehension question and answer sheets, differentiated using our magnifying glasses key (on the bottom right). One magnifying glass indicates easier and two means harder.
Our award-winning resources… 🧪Are compiled by expert teachers and scientists 🧪 Bring science to life in your child’s classroom 🧪 Are easy to download 🧪 Make planning science lessons simple 🧪 Link to the National Curriculum for England and the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence for primary schools
Our award-winning downloadable resources make it easy for teachers to teach inspirational science to primary school children. We have a huge library of over 300 curriculum-linked science and reading resources, including hands-on science lesson plans, stimulating science reading comprehensions and science vocabulary posters.
Your school can download FREE sample resource packs via our website, and claim a FREE copy of Whizz Pop Bang magazine, too! Simply click ‘Sign up for FREE resources‘ on our schools page…
Teachers say…
The lesson plans from Whizz Pop Bang are fantastic – exactly what teachers want! Written by teachers, for teachers, they are clearly laid out and concisely written so you can pick them up and use them straight away.” Paul Tyler, Primary Science Lead, Glasgow
“The resources and magazines are linked to the science curriculum and support cross-subject learning. Plus they’re bursting with awesome experiments that my less confident colleagues can teach with ease!” Kay Wilkie, Shawridge Primary School
Our award-winning downloadable resources make it easy for teachers to teach inspirational science to primary school children. We have a huge library of over 300 curriculum-linked science and reading resources, including hands-on science lesson plans, stimulating science reading comprehensions and science vocabulary posters.
We’d love it if you could help us to spread the love of science into more primary schools – simply tell your child’s teacher, school or PTA about Whizz Pop Bang’s award-winning, time-saving school resources.
Our award-winning resources… 🧪Are compiled by expert teachers and scientists 🧪 Bring science to life in your child’s classroom 🧪 Are easy to download 🧪 Make planning science lessons simple 🧪 Link to the National Curriculum for England and the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence for primary schools
Claim FREE samples for your school
Your school can download FREE sample resource packs via our website, and claim a FREE copy of Whizz Pop Bang magazine, too! Simply click ‘Sign up for FREE resources‘ on our schools page…
The lesson plans from Whizz Pop Bang are fantastic – exactly what teachers want! Written by teachers, for teachers, they are clearly laid out and concisely written so you can pick them up and use them straight away.” Paul Tyler, Primary Science Lead, Glasgow
“The resources and magazines are linked to the science curriculum and support cross-subject learning. Plus they’re bursting with awesome experiments that my less confident colleagues can teach with ease!” Kay Wilkie, Shawridge Primary School
Often, in KS1 teachers will focus on the most obvious plants, such as flowers and vegetables. In year 1, pupils will have been taught to name some trees and identify which ones are deciduous and which are evergreen. Trees are talked about as a living thing and will also be covered when teaching seasons. It is good practice to revisit learning, so as part of our lesson pack we have included a pocket tree guide. It will help pupils identify the common trees they might find on a walk in their local area. (For more trees, the free app called SEEK is brilliant.)
The pocket tree guide included in the lesson pack
Once pupils have identified different types of trees and recapped their learning from year 1, they should then start to learn about seed formation and dispersal. It’s important that pupils understand that all trees flower before they produce seeds. As part of the lesson pack, the PowerPoint presentation includes photographs of common tress, showing what their flowers look like and the seeds they produce.
Investigate seeds with wings
The lesson gets pupils to investigate why some tree seeds have wings. They will take real seeds and test how far they go with and without wings. This will lead to a discussion about why trees need their seeds to travel away from the tree to grow. Your next lesson could be looking at different types of seeds and comparing them. You could ask the question ‘does the biggest seed produce the biggest plant?’ You could even dissect a seed!
Speedy seeds complete lesson pack
How to make your science teaching cross curricular
Every month, alongside the magazine we add reading comprehensions for different year groups to our downloadable resources. This allows you to sneak some extra science content into your reading sessions. This month, for year 3 we have a non-chronological report on some super tree dwellers – orangutans.
A non-chronological report on orangutans
We have added 4 more reading comprehensions for other year groups, as it’s good for them to revisit previous learning.
Whizz Pop Bang magazine and teaching resources are brilliant for enhancing your school’s science teaching:
We provide downloadable science lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, hands-on investigations and science reading comprehensions written by primary school teachers.
Whizz Pop Bang teaching resources link to the National Curriculum, ensuring correct coverage.
All of our resources are year group specific, ensuring progression between the years.
We make cross-curricular links to other subjects, such as English, Maths, History, Geography, Art, Design and Technology and PSHE.
Prices from as little as £190 per year for a copy of Whizz Pop Bang magazine through the post each month and whole-school access to our ever-growing library of downloadable teaching resources, with unlimited teacher logins.
We’ve also just launched a new individual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing downloadable resources for just £20 for the whole year.
Astronaut Tim Peake travelled to the International Space Station in 2015 and spent 186 days orbiting the Earth and has shared some tales from this epic adventure with Whizz Pop Bang magazine in this brilliant blog post: Tim Peake spills the beans on life in space!
He’s also just published his first children’s book, along with bestselling author Steve Cole, based on space-age science and technology: Swarm Rising. We’ve got SIX COPIES to give away!
When Danny is kidnapped by Adi – who can run through brick walls and make cars drive on water – he realises that all humans are in danger. Adi is part of a super-advanced hive mind, the Swarm, which intends to protect the Earth from the environmental catastrophe caused by the human race.
Adi – Alien Digital Intelligence in the form of a girl – can bend the laws of physics and control digital data, but as a digital being she wants to know what it’s like to be human. Which is where Danny comes in.
But what exactly is the ‘help’ the secretive Swarm is offering? Can Danny and his friend Jamila help Adi stop the Swarm Agents and give humanity a second chance?
Tim Peake spent 186 days on the International Space Station between 15 December 2015 and 18 June 2016 and has shared some of his amazing experiences with Whizz Pop Bang magazine. He’s also just published his first children’s book, along with bestselling author Steve Cole, based on space-age science and technology: Swarm Rising. Find out how you could win a copy here!
European Space Agency astronaut, Tim Peake.
How did you feel when you were preparing to go into space?
“I had so many feelings! On the one hand, there was a huge amount of excitement and adrenaline. The trip was a culmination of years of work and effort, so I was really looking forward to it. I was a little bit apprehensive as well – obviously there’s a rocket launch to go through, and then all eyes are on you. The eyes of the agency, the eyes of your crew mates, the eyes of the nation watching! There are times when you just have to step up to the plate and perform.
Catching a visiting cargo vehicle is a one-person job: it is your responsibility to connect an entire space station to an entire cargo vehicle, and nobody else can help with that. These tasks are very, very high-pressure!
I felt that pressure – as sports people do when they have to perform – when I went out on the space walk. So I was definitely apprehensive, but the majority of my feelings were excitement and adrenaline. Being up there on the space station is such a privilege and everyone supports you to try and be the best that you can be.”
What’s it like looking at Earth from space?
“I just loved looking down at Kamchatka on the east coast of Russia, for example, and seeing a volcano smoking away. I’d think, ‘Nobody but me knows that volcano is erupting,’ because there literally are no humans within 2000 square miles of that location. It’s just wonderful that you can visualise the entire planet having been around it about 3000 times.
There’s nowhere on Earth that I don’t know now. Although clearly, I haven’t visited every country, I’ve got a different perspective of the planet.
It’s very serene in space. It’s a beautiful environment to be in; weightlessness, to be floating, to be looking down, just gracefully passing over the Earth without any noise, no vibration. It’s a beautiful, beautiful feeling.”
Did you look out for aliens!?
“Absolutely! The funny thing about looking out away from Earth is that in the daytime, you just see the blackness of space. It’s a very strange black – the blackest black you’ll ever see. Here on Earth we never really see black like this, because there’s always ambient light around.
In space – wow! You feel like you’re falling into the void when you look out at the blackness of space. And of course, there are no stars because the Sun is so bright that it blinds out the light of the other stars. You can only see this black abyss.
At night, when we are in the Earth’s shadow, all the stars come out. It’s beautiful to look the other direction: you can see 100 billion stars making up the Milky Way with no light pollution. The interesting thing is, you can’t see other satellites which you can see clearly from Earth – I look up at the night sky here, and I’m always seeing satellites going overhead. But in space, because we’re travelling so fast, it’s very, very hard to see another satellite that’s also travelling very fast with the naked eye. So we don’t see lights coming towards us in space.”
What’s bedtime like in space?
“Sleeping in weightlessness is lovely once you get used to it. It’s a bit tough to begin with, because your body doesn’t know to go to sleep. Here on Earth, every day of our lives we lie down at bedtime, rest our heads on pillows, and these actions are such strong triggers to make us fall asleep. When you don’t have those triggers, you float around all day, you float into your crew quarter, you zip up a sleeping bag, you can switch off the lights, you can put in some earplugs in but your body says, ‘What now?’ Once you get used to it and your body can fall asleep, wow, it’s a lovely sleep. There are no pressure points, no tossing and turning, no restlessness and you wake up completely relaxed.
We only need six hours’ sleep maximum on the space station because the quality of sleep is so good.
I used to like to strap my sleeping bag loosely using tie wraps, just enough to allow me to float around a little bit – not so much that I’d bang my head on the roof, but enough to enjoy that floating experience.”
How do you eat on the ISS?
“You get very unpopular with your crew mates if you open a packet of crisps or something like that!
Crumbs go everywhere, even in people’s eyes, all week long – so we try and avoid that.
I had bags of pistachio nuts, already shelled, but they were a treat that were sent up in care packages every now and again. You just had to be careful about how you eat that kind of thing. But yes, you don’t really want to have crumbs in the space station!”
For fans of Alex Rider, Young Bond and Cherub, this exciting action-adventure is the first children’s book from astronaut Tim Peake and bestselling author Steve Cole, and is based on space-age science and technology.
When Danny is kidnapped by Adi – who can run through brick walls and make cars drive on water – he realises that all humans are in danger. Adi is part of a super-advanced hive mind, the Swarm, which intends to protect the Earth from the environmental catastrophe caused by the human race.
Adi – Alien Digital Intelligence in the form of a girl – can bend the laws of physics and control digital data, but as a digital being she wants to know what it’s like to be human. Which is where Danny comes in.
But what exactly is the ‘help’ the secretive Swarm is offering? Can Danny and his friend Jamila help Adi stop the Swarm Agents and give humanity a second chance?
Do you want to cover climate change in KS2 but don’t know where to start?
Climate change is not specifically mentioned in the National Curriculum, but we all know it’s an important topic that we need to teach. However, it is quite a complex subject and can be hard to explain to primary-age children.
We have dedicated a whole magazine to explaining this topic in a child-friendly way, without making it feel scary.
How to explain greenhouse gases to Year 3 and 4, to help them understand how our planet is getting warmer.
In our library of downloadable science teaching resources, you’ll find a new lesson pack that explains what climate change is, using simple terms so children can easily understand it. The lesson plan includes a simple experiment that uses chocolate, an upturned glass and a sunny spot to demonstrate the greenhouse effect.
Year 3 and 4 Climate change lesson pack
Climate change can be a scary subject, so we’ve tried to make the messaging as positive as possible so that children understand that if we act now, it’s not too late. Even though they might not be old enough to vote or make rules about the way we live, they are never too young to speak up and influence those in power. We have included a flow chart to help them identify ways in which they are able to make positive changes towards helping to stop global heating. We have also included a climate pledge for children to fill in. Maybe your whole class could make a climate pledge together to display in class so that you can keep checking in and making sure you are all sticking to it.
How can I create a climate change debate in my classroom?
Debates are a great way to get children inspired and motivated. In our Year 5 and 6 pack, we have written a fictitious letter from a made-up sustainable energy department, stating that it would like to offer a few schools in the area some renewable energy resources. Your pupils can debate where might be a good place to install wind turbines or solar panels on your school premises and how the scheme might impact school life. The discussion pack also includes two explanation texts, one on solar panels and the other on wind turbines.
Year 5 and 6 Save our planet lesson pack
Guided reading
To help consolidate pupils’ learning, why not introduce some climate-themed reading into your English sessions from our downloadable reading resources?
We have an inspirational information text for Year 5 readers, showcasing the achievements of ten amazing young climate activists.
Inspire your Year 4 class by reading about the life of sensational scientist David Attenborough.
There’s a fascinating explanation text on wind turbines for Year 3.
For Year 6, we have an interview with plant biologist Professor Joanne Chory, who realised that she could use her knowledge of biology to help solve the problem of climate change.
“Great resources! Using as a whole class reading text – my year 4 class will love it! Lovely, visual text in the format of an interview and a good range of questions, (including ‘test style’) which all fit nicely into the VIPERS strands! Thank you!”
