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!”
All around the world, young people are taking action against the climate crisis, from picking up litter to taking governments to court. Take inspiration from incredible people like Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, who explains his mission in this video…
With 20 other kids, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez took the US government to court for continuing to emit greenhouse gases, even though they’ve known for more than 50 years that this would create catastrophic climate impacts.
This is the final week that Y’s exclusive Wonder Club is open to EVERYONE! Your scientists-in-training will swapping their beakers and lab coats for screwdrivers and scissors to become EPIC ENGINEERS! This challenge is a fantastic one for the summer holidays, especially if you need a rainy day activity.
If you haven’t been following along with the challenges, find out more about Y’s Wonder Club here: whizzpopbang.com/wonder-club/
Earn a collectible high quality enamel Epic Engineer badge by getting hands-on and solving a problem! Spot a problem, figure out a way to solve it, build your solution and test, test, test!
Does your solution work? If not, don’t worry! Try to think of some improvements you could make and tell us about them.
Here’s your challenge to earn that highly coveted EPIC ENGINEER badge from Y’s Wonder Club!
Complete these four challenges to earn your Whizz Pop Bang Epic Engineer badge…
1) Identify a problem
Describe the problem or challenge that you’re planning to solve with engineering, e.g. safely zipwire teddies out of your bed into a toy box, engineer a bridge that can hold a heavy weight or create a tall tower using only newspapers.
2) Design a solution
Draw or write down a plan showing how you are going to solve your problem or challenge. Try to think through some difficulties that might arise and plan how to overcome them. For example, how could you reduce friction if you’re creating a zipwire?
3) Get building
Time to start construction! Use materials that you have around the house whenever possible – the recycling box is your friend! Send us a photo of your construction.
4) Test and improve your design
Does your solution work? If not, don’t worry! Try to think of some improvements you could make and tell us about them.
How did you get on? Did you follow along with our Epic Engineer week? Did you solve your problem or end up with more questions that you started with?
Send your application in to us to receive your badge just like these epic engineers!
1.  Download the Epic Engineer application form. Print it out and complete the first page of the application form to tell us about how you’ve helped the environment. Attach any photos or drawings that you’d like to send to us. If you don’t have a printer, you can type your answers into an email or write your answers on a plain piece of paper and send us a photograph of it.
2.  Ask your parent or guardian to pay the £1-per-badge postage and packing fee, which can be done online at whizzpopbang.com/shop/719619/badge-postage-and-packing/. Add the order confirmation number to the second page of the application form.
3. Ask your parent or guardian to fill in the second page of the form.
4.  Photograph or scan your completed form and any other documents and email them to Y@whizzpopbang.com with the subject line as ‘Epic Engineer’. Alternatively, post your completed application to Epic Engineer, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Please note that it can take up to 12 weeks for delivery of the badges.
Made using 100% sustainable cardboard and paper, this awesome dragonfly is not only fun and engaging to play with, but also eco-friendly.
With a brightly coloured blue body and pull-tab flapping wing action, this water-residing minibeast is simply spectacular. And with a 37cm wingspan, it’s sure to impress!
Easy to assemble using slot-together techniques – there’s no glue, no mess, no fuss. Everything you need is provided in the kit – simply follow the instructions: press out the pre-cut parts, build and play!
This newly launched kit also comes with a press-out Dragonfly Fact Stand for children to learn about how this incredible creature has inspired engineers.
With 15 press-out parts and an estimated build time of 20 minutes, it’s set at a skill level of 2 stars out of 5.
Build Your Ownare the creators of an exciting range of award-winning, STEM-inspired children’s toys that you can build yourself. The Build Your Own range is suitable for ages 8 to 100!
Answer this question in the comments for a chance to win one of 10 Dragonfly Mini Builds kits:
When did the first dragonflies appear on Earth?
A Around 3000 years ago B Around 300 million years ago C Around 3 trillion years ago
Our very knowledgeable robot, Y, has another challenge for you this week. Y’s Wonder Club club is for budding scientists to share their adventures in science with our robot, Y, and other Whizz Pop Bang readers. All Whizz Pop Bang subscribers are automatically joined to Y’s Wonder Club and for a limited time this summer we’re opening up the club for everyone!
We have two weeks left so get ready for your scientist in training to put their capes on and become an Eco Hero! If you missed our previous weeks, go back and have a look at the Wildlife Watcher and Super Scientist badges to collect them all! We’ve got some great summer holiday activities that not only keep the kids entertained but do good for the planet too!
Complete these three challenges to earn your Whizz Pop Bang Eco Hero badge…
1) Upcycle something
Choose an item that’s reaching the end of its life or is destined for the bin and transform it into something useful. For example, you could make a pencil case from an old bag, tie-die a stained t-shirt or freshen up an old wooden stool with bright paints.
2) Make an environmentally friendly change
Make a lifestyle change that enables you or your family to cause less harm to the environment. Perhaps you could ask your parents if you could walk, cycle or scoot into school or to the park, instead of driving. Maybe you could reduce the amount of single-use plastics you use at home, eat less meat, or help your family to reduce your food waste.
3) Help to raise awareness
Spread the word about an environmental issue that you feel strongly about. You could design and put up a poster about an environmental issue, e.g. reminding your school friends to bring in reusable water bottles or encouraging awareness in your neighbourhood of toads or hedgehogs on the roads. You could write to your MP or your local shops or cafes to ask them to make environmentally friendly changes. Or maybe you could join an environmental campaign or protest.
Here’s how to apply for your badge:
1. Download the Eco Hero application form. Print it out and complete the first page of the application form to tell us about how you’ve helped the environment. Attach any photos or drawings that you’d like to send to us. If you don’t have a printer, you can type your answers into an email or write your answers on a plain piece of paper and send us a photograph of it.
2. Ask your parent or guardian to pay the £1-per-badge postage and packing fee, which can be done online at whizzpopbang.com/shop/719619/badge-postage-and-packing/. Add the order confirmation number to the second page of the application form.
3. Ask your parent or guardian to fill in the second page of the form.
4. Photograph or scan your completed form and any other documents and email them to Y@whizzpopbang.com with the subject line as ‘Eco Hero Badge’. Alternatively, post your completed application to Eco Hero Badge, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Please note that it can take up to 12 weeks for delivery of the badges.
Are you looking for planning resources for teaching food chainsin Year 4? Here’s how you can use our new downloadable food chain resources to easily create a memorable lesson that produces the sticky knowledge Ofsted will be looking for…
Where to start
In Year 4, during the science unit ‘Animals including humans’, you will need to teach about food chains. Pupils will have already covered simple food chains in Year 2. They will have been taught what a carnivore, omnivore and herbivore is and investigated different habitats. In Year 4, you need to build on this knowledge by introducing different terminology and looking at more complex food chains that include more than one prey and predator. The new vocabulary you will be introducing is ‘producer’. Children should already be familiar with ‘prey’ and ‘predator’. You are not expected to teach ‘consumer’, ‘tertiary consumer’ or ‘secondary consumer’ as these terms will be covered in KS3. However, pupils may come across them when they carry out research.
How will the Whizz Pop Bang food chain lesson produce sticky knowledge?
In this lesson, pupils will create a 3D food chain using cardboard tubes. Each tube will represent a part of the food chain, including a drawn picture and a written label. The tubes are used to show how each living thing swallows another further down the food chain. Physically making a model is far more memorable and fun than drawing in a book, plus, it’s great for kinaesthetic and visual learners so it will help to create the sticky knowledge that Ofsted is looking for.
Cardboard tubes food chain
Our food chain lesson pack has been written by an experienced primary school teacher. The downloadable pack includes:
A differentiated food chain lesson plan, linking to the national curriculum
A PowerPoint presentation
Instructions to make a 3D food chain using carboard tubes
A whole class food chain game
A lower ability sheet to support making the food chain
Food chains pack for year 4
How to evidence the lesson
If your planning isn’t enough evidence, pupils could use the Keynote app on an iPad and record themselves describing their food chain using the vocabulary you have taught them. If you need evidence in their books, you could print a photo of the model; during morning work the next day, pupils could label and annotate it. This would mean that they go back over their learning from the day before, helping the knowledge to stick.
How to make food chains cross-curricular
Within the lesson plan there are some links to computing, which children can use to research and present their food chain. There are also lots of ways to embed the pupils’ science learning in your school day. Using science texts in guided reading or whole-class reading sessions is an easy way for children to delve further into the subject matter and acquire more knowledge. We have a Year 4 reading comprehension pack that links to this topic:
Interview with a desert field scientist
What should I teach next?
You could delve into more complicated food chains, such as the coral reef. We have a great lesson pack that involves pupils making an edible polyp, which forms part of that food chain.
It’s important to make sure you are covering what you need to in your teaching. Quality knowledge organisers help to ensure good progression across the school. They are useful for both teachers and pupils. We have produced a knowledge organiser for every topic for Years 2 to 6. It’s worthwhile knowing what children have already been taught, as well as what they will learn in future years.
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.
