The Perseid meteor shower is a spectacle not to be missed as, if conditions are right, it’s a great opportunity to spot lots of bright meteors – around 100 per hour!
In 2024, the Perseids are visible between 17 July – 24 August, but in 2024 the meteor shower reaches it peak on 12th and 13th August.
Here are some top tips for how to spot meteors:
☄️ Research the best time to spot the meteor shower – for the Perseids in 2024 in the UK, this is in the early hours of 12th and 13th August. The days leading up to these dates could also be good opportunities to see a good show. ☄️ Ideally, the sky should be dark. You’ll get a better view away from streetlights and when the Moon is not full. The Moon sets by 10pm in mid-August in the UK, so the sky will be darkest after that time. ☄️ Fill your view with the sky and wait! Lying on the ground is a great way to see as much as possible, or get comfy in a deckchair. ☄️ Give your eyes 15 minutes to get used to the dark ☄️ Check the weather forecast – a clear sky will give a better view. ☄️ Look around! Perseid meteors can appear anywhere in the sky.
It’s not long until the fantastic Just So Festival kicks off – it’s running at Rode Hall, Cheshire on 16th – 18th August 2024. It’s an incredible outdoor adventure for families from bumps to great grandparents, and Whizz Pop Bang are so excited to be a part of the fun that’s in store!
The Whizz Pop Bang team are huge fans of this magical festival, and once again, we’re bringing a sprinkle of science to the programme!
Head to the Discovery Den to explore the wonderful world of water with Whizz Pop Bang, the awesome science magazine for kids
Cut, fold and float flowers that blossom due to capillary action Make a floating boat Dare you hold a glass of water over your head?! And lots more (slightly damp) fun, perfect for children aged 6 to 12.
Whizz Pop Bang is an awesomely amazing monthly science magazine that brings science to life for children aged six to twelve (and their parents too)! There’s lab-loads of hands-on experiments, mind-boggling facts, puzzles, news and fun packed into each month’s magazine. Whizz Pop Bang sparks imaginations and inspires the scientists of the future from the moment it comes bursting through their letterbox. Subscribe today at whizzpopbang.com!
If you’re not lucky enough to be going to Just So Festival this year, but want to have heaps of fun with science, browse back issues in our shop now!
Have your family been glued to the cycling in the Olympics? Bike fans will love Bicycles Pop-Up Book – a beautiful pop-up book all about cycling over the past 200 years. Featuring eight pop-up scenes crafted by master paper engineer, Dominique Ehrhard, this beautiful book will be treasured by cycle enthusiasts of all ages.
Hoopla is a new magazine to help support the emotional wellbeing of children aged 5 to 10, full of fun activities, jokes and good news!
In a world where our children are growing up faster than ever before, where they face the pull of screen time, societal pressures to excel at school, to fit in with their peers, to be a certain body shape and to look a certain way, it’s easy to see how kids can sometimes feel overwhelmed.
It’s no wonder an ever-growing proportion of young children are facing mental health problems from an early age.
A magazine to help keep children carefree, playful and happy…
Hoopla magazine gives kids aged 5 to 10 a breathing space. A space to be who they want to be, to explore new ideas, to challenge their brains, and to try fun activities that foster happiness and wellbeing.
Hoopla is a 36-page magazine, packed full of fun ideas for off-screen activities to try at home, along with exciting articles to stimulate children’s expanding brains. Hoopla helps to keep kids happy, playful and curious. It’s a real physical magazine that arrives especially for them through the letterbox each month – a dose of happiness delivered straight into their hands each month!
Hoopla is the happy magazine for all children who want to have fun! 😁
What’s inside Hoopla magazine?
There’ll be a new topic each month and each edition will feature sections on art, nature, science and cooking, as well as emotions and critical thinking.
The first edition of Hoopla is all about having fun! It will get kids thinking… What does it mean to have fun? Would it be enjoyable to have fun all the time? How do you and your family have fun? Plus, there’ll be loads of fun activities to try at home!
Future editions will cover a wide range of topics, from dinosaurs and detectives to ancient Egypt.
Ideas for fresh-air adventures that encourage kids to get outside
The 36 pages will be packed full of ideas to keep kids happily engaged, such as outdoor activities, art projects and fun science experiments.
Kids will discover famous artists and get to try a related art project each month
There’ll be a good news section as well as journalling pages to encourage boys and girls to write or draw their thoughts, feelings and experiences. There’ll also be stories, puzzles, jokes and riddles to keep young minds challenged and active.
Children are encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings
Each magazine is lovingly illustrated by awesome illustrator Clive Goodyer with fun-loving characters that help to bring the magazine to life.
Magazine characters, clockwise from top left: Jem, Callie, Tanj and Whirl
Happy, healthy minds
Dr Naira Wilson, a clinical psychologist specialising in childhood mental health and author of children’s books supporting emotional wellbeing, will be Hoopla’s expert adviser. Hoopla will promote ideas that engage children in activities that support their wellbeing, without being prescriptive or pushy.
Beam a ray of happiness to your child each month with Hoopla magazine!
Helping others
We’re committed to helping as many children as possible, which is why we’ll be supporting children’s charity ‘Place2Be’. This well-established charity partners with schools all over the country to supply trained councillors for one-to-one and group counselling so that children of all ages have someone to turn to.
So a subscription to Hoopla doesn’t just support your child’s happiness, it also supports the wellbeing of thousands more children.
Who are we?
I’m Jenny Inglis, a mother of three and for a time I was fostered as a child. I have also had experience of being a foster parent too. I am therefore personally very aware of the experiences of childhood mental health struggles and the importance of children’s wellbeing and happiness. It is for those reasons that I’m hoping to launch a new happy magazine for children. ‘Hoopla’ will help to promote self-acceptance, positive mental attitudes and enjoyment of all aspects of childhood life.
For the last nine years I’ve been running an equally awesome magazine for kids called Whizz Pop Bang – it’s an award-winning magazine that brings science to life for girls and boys aged 6 to 12. I started Whizz Pop Bang from a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 and it’s been a roaring success ever since!
With the help of my fabulous team of Whizz Pop Bang writers, illustrators, designers and customer service super stars, we’re ridiculously excited to be bringing this second magazine to life!
Thank you so much for your support in helping to make Hoopla magazine a reality!
Is Euro 2024 on 24/7 in your house? Are you counting down to Paris 2024? Then keep reading, because we have three copies of Illustrated Sports Encyclopedia from DK Books to give away to sports-loving scientists!
Illustrated Sports Encyclopedia is the ultimate guide to over 100 sports worldwide. From basketball to pickleball, this book has it all! Whether your child loves team sports, racing, or extreme adventures, they’ll find something exciting.
Packed with vibrant images and easy-to-understand explanations, kids will learn the rules, essential gear, and the spirit of the game. With special features on the Olympics and Paralympics, this book is perfect for young sports enthusiasts.
Simply answer the question in the comments to be in with a chance.
What equipment is used for pickleball? 🎾 Paddle and ball 🎾 Bow and arrow 🎾 Racquet and shuttlecock
Illustrated Sports Encyclopedia. DK. £14.99. Out Now.
Build Your Own’s range of super-cool, eco-friendly kits are a fantastic way to bring STEM learning to life in a way that kids can get stuck into. Budding engineers can build a honey bee, ladybird, stag beetle and dragonfly with these inspiring mini kits.
Whizz Pop Bang is the awesomely amazing science magazine for kids, and our lucky winner will receive a three month subscription! Every edition is packed with experiments, activities, jokes, inspiring stories and more. It’s guaranteed to be a hit with every small dinosaur expert, keen kitchen chemist or generally curious child.
To enter, simply answer this question correctly in a comment
We have 5 copies of this amazing, educational book to give away!
This amazing book will tell you all about how you can become an expert inforaging – which is a way to find incredible food, medicines and even soaps in the natural world around you.
After reading this book, you’ll be able to:
– Find the best berries and plants for making yummy foods
– Learn about the incredible stories hidden in the flowers and plants and trees you see every day (and some you might never have spotted).
– Impress your friends with your incredible knowledge of the natural world – and help them protect it!
To be in with a chance of winning a copy, all you have to do is correctly answer this question in the comments below…
Which if these foods would you typically find while foraging in a forest?
Here at Whizz Pop Bang, we strive to send the message that science is for everyone. With that in mind, alongside an exciting monthly magazine, we have created a suite of comprehensive science lessons and reading resources linked to the national curriculum for teachers to use. Here is an account from one of our current school subscribers, explaining the impact it has had on her teaching.
I have been a teacher for five years and taught in schools which take a topic-led, cross-curricular approach. I came across the magazine on Facebook and became a personal subscriber for my own children. I have a daughter and I love how many female scientists are featured. I soon realised that this was a quality magazine which is well produced and would be wasted not to be used in schools. I took in the magazine and spoke to the English and Science leads, and they agreed that it would be a great resource to have in school.
I was drawn to the magazine because each month it has a different topic; I have magazines about insects and the science behind the Stone Age! Each edition is full of quality texts, which I use as model texts for my English lessons. I applaud them for making sure there is a gender balance; it is important to send the message that we can all achieve great things.
I love the quality of the magazine. I have a stash of them in my classroom, which after two years are still going strong, even though they are the first to be chosen in the book corner. It is colourful, packed with fun, engaging illustrations and full of interesting facts. It’s riddled with small snippets of texts that encourage the most reluctant reader in my class to pick it up and have a go. I particularly love that by having an interview page with real scientists, it showcases all the different roles that scientists do. I feel like my class is more inquisitive and asks a lot more questions, helping their scientific knowledge to increase, which I think is the direct impact of the magazine.
In the past, I have wasted hours trying to think of interesting practical science activities for my class, looking for that investigation which will work and offer the correct scientific focus. The school resources cater perfectly for this. Whilst they are not a scheme, what they do offer are practical lessons which are ready to download and do. They just slot into your sequence of lessons. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against schemes, but it’s nice to change it up and give the students something different that gets them excited. And the best bits – planning is done, easy to resource and no marking!
We have started a plants topic and rather than the usual boring worksheet of labelling a plant, we actually built and labelled our own flower. It was way more memorable than a ten-minute worksheet and encouraged a lot of discussion!
Before Whizz Pop Bang, my class were never that enthusiastic for science but since I’ve had a subscription to both the magazine and the resources, they whoop when they see we are doing science. I know budgets are tight, but if you can get a subscription, it’s definitely worth it!
We know how tough things are for schools at the moment, so please email at schools@whizzpopbang.com as we have lots of different options and we will try and work with your budget and give you the best that we can. As a company, it means the world to get reviews like the one above. Help us to help you by getting in touch.
We have six of these brilliant, interlocking brainteaser toys to give away!
The SLIDA® Classic is an awesome 3D puzzle that you can play with anytime, anywhere!
Will you be able to put all of the pieces together to make the 3D ball without asking anyone for help? Will you be able to solve the challenge faster than mum or dad, your best friend, or your colleague at work? This 3D puzzle will challenge you, stimulate your mind and help develop problem-solving skills
For a chance to win one of these, just answer this question!
What is the most expensive spice in the world by weight?
Are you looking for inspiring planning resources for teaching about Vikings in upper key stage 2? Here’s how you can use our new downloadable Vikings teaching resources to easily create a memorable lesson…
Where to start?
Before you use the lesson pack, pupils should already know when the Viking period was, and be aware of how they lived. This lesson pack links with history and science, particularly with the topic ‘Properties and changes of materials’.
Pupils will carry out a simple investigation to see what affects how well an oil lamp burns. This lesson involves making an oil lamp, which means using fire! We have checked the primary CLEAPS guidance and have given you some tips for your risk assessment. However, you will need to review it and make any alterations for your class. Pupils will plan their own investigation to answer one of three questions, which are included in the PowerPoint presentation, along with simple instructions to make the oil lamp.
We have a whole issue dedicated to the Vikings, which is full of fun facts and information suitable for primary-aged children. Our teachers have created two reading resources with questions linked to the National Curriculum and Curriculum for Excellence:
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 £254.99 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 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.
