Included in the Whizz Pop Bang downloadable school resources are lesson packs written by experienced primary school teachers. The packs are complete lessons for specific year groups and linked to the National Curriculum. They contain everything you need to teach the lesson, apart from some inexpensive resources. Each lesson pack contains:
A curriculum linked lesson plan
A PowerPoint presentation to run the lesson
Any other sheets you might need; for example, tables to record results
The Whizz Pop Bang resources are not scheme of work, but our lessons are not one-offs either – they will fit into your medium-term plan. To help you do this, on each lesson plan is a box that states the previous learning your pupils should have done and a box suggesting future learning. This helps you to ensure a clear progression of skill and learning.
Primary school teachers are expected to remember a huge amount of information for every area of the curriculum. To help, on each lesson plan we explain the science behind the lesson – just look for our robot, Y!
Our PowerPoint presentations give information around the subject area in an engaging, child-friendly way, using illustrations from the magazine.
All the files in a lesson pack are stored in one handy zip file, making them quick and easy to download from our website. We know how precious a teacher’s time is!
Reading links
Each lesson plan includes links to reading comprehensions that are also part of our downloadable resources. Often, lessons link to other areas of the curriculum too, such as maths and computing.
Why did we produce lesson packs?
Our aim is to help teachers inspire future scientists and to reduce your workload! Our lessons are practical: they are experiments, investigations, games and makes. If you are looking for hundreds of worksheets and lots of marking, our resources are not for you!
“Engaging colourful resources designed to capture the children’s attention and encourage enquiry and questioning.” Rachael Howard Hatherop, C of E Primary School
Are you looking for planning resources for teaching sound in year 4? Here’s how you can use our downloadable teaching resources to easily create memorable lessons that produce the sticky knowledge Ofsted will be looking for…
Where to start?
Sound is a fun topic to teach but it can be tricky to explain how sound travels in waves as the children can’t see it. We have lots of interesting ways to help your pupils explore and ‘feel’ sound, which cover the National Curriculum objectives you need to teach.
Telephones lesson pack
This pack links to our Victorian Science issue. This lesson is a great introduction to sound and begins with pupils feeling sound waves through a balloon. In pairs, they will create a simple string telephone and investigate how it works. Using photographs or a labelled diagram, they will then start to explain how sound travels from one cup to the other. As with all our lesson packs, the science is explained in the lesson plan and on the last slide of the PowerPoint presentation.
Bottle blower lesson pack
In this lesson, pupils will investigate how pitch changes when you alter the amount of water in a bottle. This links to our brilliant issue on sound called ‘Turn up the volume’, which is available to buy from our website.
Pin strummer lesson pack
This is a great lesson to teach towards the end of your unit on sound. Pupils will use the knowledge they have acquired and apply it to their own practical enquiry. They will make their own musical instrument – a pin strummer – and then change different variables to see how the pitch and volume changes.
How to evidence your practical lessons
If your planning isn’t enough evidence, pupils could use the Keynote app on an iPad and record themselves describing their investigation or activity. If you need evidence in their books, you could print a photo from the lesson and 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. Do pupils need to write each step of an experiment? In my experience, asking pupils to write down everything they have done kills the learning. Choose one part from each investigation; that way they will do it well and it will enhance learning. Our knowledge organisers are really helpful with spellings and also help pupils to remember key concepts and vocabulary.
How to embed science across the curriculum
There are lots of ways to embed the pupil’s 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 several reading comprehension packs for year 4 linking to the topic of sound:
Reading comprehensions which link to the topic of sound
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 £197.99 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 have anindividual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing downloadable resources for just £20 for the whole year.
“We used the Bottle Blower investigation to discover how pitch changes. The children loved it and the resources were clear and colourful. The reading comprehension on the foley artists had my class fascinated with the subject matter as they were completely unaware what a foley artist was. Great to have the resources differentiated!” Mrs Godwin, Year 4 Class teacher
This year’s theme is growth, which you can take in lots of different directions. We have two FREE activities based on plants which are suitable for all year groups.
All animals need to eat to grow. In this pack, pupils will discover that a coral reef is in fact both living and dead. They will make their own edible polyp and learn the importance of the coral polyp in the reef ecosystem.
To help to keep science going all week, we have several reading comprehensions linked to the theme of growth, including interviews, explanation texts and historical scientists.
Interview with a coral biologist
Explanation text on scuba diving
Ocean explorer Sylvia Earle
Don’t forget to take photographs so you can make a display or share them on your school’s social media platforms. We would love to see what you have been doing too, so please tag us @whizzpopbangmag
Whizz Pop Bang magazine and teaching resources are brilliant ways to enhance your 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, Design and Technology and PSHE.
We have an individual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing resources for just £20 for the whole year.
If your school is not a subscriber, we have an amazing offer of a 20% discount until 31st March 2022. Just apply the code SCIWEEK22 at the checkout to receive the discount. (Only available on whole-school subscriptions to the magazines and resources.)
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 used the bottle blower investigation to discover how pitch changes. The children loved it and the resources were clear and colourful. The class were fascinated with the reading comprehension on a foley artist as they didn’t know what they did. Great to have the resource differentiated.” Year 4 primary school teacher
Are you looking for planning resources for teaching the water cycle in year 4? Here’s how you can use our new downloadable teaching resources to easily create memorable lessons that produce the sticky knowledge Ofsted will be looking for…
Where to start?
Evaporation is part of the water cycle and it’s important pupils understand what it is before they learn about the water cycle. We have a lesson pack called ‘Evaporation investigation’ which allows pupils to observe what happens to water over a period. All our lesson packs come with a differentiated lesson plan linked to the curriculum and a PowerPoint to help run the lesson.
Our lesson plans often include boxes titled ‘previous learning’ and ‘future learning’; this is to help you understand where the lesson would fit in your medium-term plan. Sometimes we suggest another lesson pack and that is what we have done here. Once pupils understand evaporation, you are ready to teach the water cycle. In this lesson, pupils will make their mini water cycle using items which are easy to resource and inexpensive.
Why make a mini water cycle, rather than asking children to create a labelled diagram? All pupils learn differently, and to create sticky knowledge children need memorable experiences. The visual and kinaesthetic learners are more likely to remember making a mini water cycle than filling in a worksheet.
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 water cycle and each stage. If you need evidence for their books, you could print a photo of their mini water cycle and 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. Using knowledge organisers can be an additional tool that helps remind children of previous learning or to use as a scaffold – not for answers!
How to make the water cycle cross curricular
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 two reading comprehension packs for year 4 linking to weather:
Interview with a meteorologist
Sensational meteorologist Joanne Simpson
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 the water cycle is called ‘Hurricane Florence’. 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.
Satellite view. Hurricane Florence over the Atlantics close to the US coast .
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.
Are you looking for planning resources for teaching states of matter in year 4? Here’s how you can use our new downloadable teaching resources to easily create memorable lessons that produce the sticky knowledge Ofsted will be looking for…
Where to start?
It states clearly in the National Curriculum that this unit is about understanding the difference between solids, liquids and gases, how materials change state when they are heated and cooled, and at what temperature this happens. It also includes evaporation in the water cycle. It’s important to remember this unit does not include heating where a chemical change occurs, such as baking or burning.
We have several lesson packs which cover these objectives:
Gloopy slime
Your pupils will make oobleck and observe how it turns from a solid to a liquid.
Chocolate investigation
A comparative investigation where pupils will test and find out which type of chocolate melts the fastest.
Make a bottled jungle
An investigation into why it rains in rainforests and jungles. Pupils will make their own miniature jungle and watch how it looks after itself!
How to evidence your practical lessons
If your planning isn’t enough evidence, pupils could use the Keynote app on an iPad and record themselves describing their investigation or activity. If you need evidence in their books, you could print a photo form the lesson and 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. Do pupils need to write each step of an experiment? In my experience, asking pupils to write down everything they have done kills the learning. Choose one part from each investigation; that way they will do it well and it will enhance learning. Our knowledge organisers are really helpful with spellings and helping pupils to remember key concepts and vocabulary.
How to embed science across the curriculum
There are also lots of ways to embed the pupil’s 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 several reading comprehension packs for year 4 linking to the topic states of matter:
Interview with a volcanologist, an explosions expert and a biography on Robert Boyle
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 presentations to use for the unit states of matter are called ‘dry ice’, ‘dancing cornflour’ and ‘stunning snowflakes’. 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.
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.
Are you looking for planning resources for teaching teeth in year 4? Here’s how you can use our new downloadable teeth teaching resources to easily create memorable lessons that produce the sticky knowledge that Ofsted will be looking for…
Where to start?
Teeth should be taught before the digestive system. By year 4, most children will have lost several of their baby teeth and will be at the in-between stage with a mixture of adult teeth, baby teeth and some gaps. It’s fun to get pupils to look in a mirror and examine their own mouths! Children will already know that they have two sets of teeth. What they probably don’t know is that their adult teeth started growing while they were still a baby! They probably also don’t know how many teeth they have, what they are called and what they are used for. Our Model Mouth Lesson Pack answers all of these questions. It has been written by an experienced primary school teacher and is ideal for teaching teeth to year 4 pupils. The downloadable pack includes:
A teeth lesson plan
A PowerPoint presentation
Instructions for making a model mouth
A printable Wibble Wobble tooth game
Model Mouth lesson pack
Why build a 3D model mouth rather than asking children to label a worksheet?
All pupils learn differently, and to create sticky knowledge children need memorable experiences. The visual and kinaesthetic learners are more likely to remember making a 3D model mouth than filling in a worksheet. They will physically make 32 teeth and mould each tooth into the correct shape. Once the models are complete, you can discuss how we keep teeth healthy. Pupils could even practise brushing their model teeth
If your planning isn’t enough evidence, pupils could use the Keynote app on an iPad to record themselves describing their model mouth and each tooth’s name and function. If you need evidence in their books, you could print a photo of the model and 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. Our Wibble Wobble board game is also a good way for children to revisit the subject. Knowledge organisers can be an additional tool to help remind children of previous learning, or to use as a scaffold – not for answers!
Pupils should then research other animals, both herbivores and carnivores, that have teeth. What similarities and differences do they notice? Do all the animals have the same number of teeth? Do they all have molars, canines and incisors? Are they called something different? Why don’t some animals have teeth? Once children start researching, they will hopefully come up with lots of questions they would like to find out the answers to. Our downloadable Animal Antics text on vipers is a good place to start.
A non-chronological report on vipers
Further investigations
We also have another year 4 downloadable lesson plan on teeth, which is an observation over time enquiry. Pupils will set up an investigation to observe eggshells in different liquids. Eggshells and teeth are both made of calcium-based compounds so this is a good visual demonstration of how some drinks can cause damage to our teeth. Our lesson plans always explain the science behind the lessons – teachers can’t remember everything!
Dissolving teeth lesson pack
How to make teeth cross-curricular
Making the model mouth links to art and sculpture. There are also lots of ways to embed the pupil’s 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 three reading comprehension packs for year 4:
Interview with a dentist, an explanation text about an electric toothbrush and the history of the toothbrush.
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 teeth is called ‘Smile crocodile’. 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.
Spectacular science image
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, memorable lessons 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.
“Using Whizz Pop Bang school resources has enabled investigations to be an integral part of my science planning. I now have investigations and experiments throughout my planning rather than just at the end. The lessons are easy to resource and the pack has everything I need to teach the lesson so it saves me time as well!” Louise Hampson, Year 3 teacher
