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Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.

Fun science activities to try at home

Children doing experiments
Want to inspire your child to enjoy science? Try these easy, engaging activities together at home.

Science can not only lead to well-paid and exciting jobs (think doctor, sports technologist, space craft engineer), it also opens up children’s minds to new ideas and encourages a curiosity about the world around them. Here are some fun activities that you can do with your child to inspire their interest in science (thanks to science teacher Pippa Hardisty), plus links to some Royal Institution ExpeRimental hands-on experiments.

Cabbage water indicator

Aim:
To determine which substances are an acid and which ones are an alkali.  The cabbage water acts as an indicator, changing colour if it is in contact with an acid or an alkali. Even if the concept of acids and alkalis is too complex for your child, they will wonder at the amazing colour changes in this experiment.

Method:

  1. Chop and boil a quarter of a red cabbage
  2. Strain off the cabbage water and keep it
  3. Note what colour the cabbage water is
  4. Place the cabbage water in several clear glasses or in several bowls
  5. Place some washing soap powder in one of the glasses or bowls and note down any colour changes
  6. Try the same thing with other household substances e.g. vinegar (acid), lemon juice (acid), orange juice (acid), soap (alkali), shampoo (alkali), conditioner (alkali)

The cabbage water should turn pink in acidic solutions, and blue or green in alkaline solutions.

Kids could also go on to make and try different indicators such as the juice from freshly boiled beetroot, blackberry juice or strawberry juice. They could also go on to use these natural colourings to dye some scrap materials.

Make your own lava lamp


Understand the science and download a free activity information sheet from ExpeRimental.

Which egg will cook first?

Aim:
To guess which egg will cook first.

Method:

  1. Take two pans and fill them with the same amount of water
  2. Boil two eggs, one in each pan, but over two different sizes of flame - one larger than the other. Boil both eggs for four minutes
  3. Ask your child to guess which egg they think will cook first
  4. Then crack them both open and look inside.

Answer: Both eggs should be the same when you open them up, because the water boils at 100 degrees, so even if the one flame is hotter the water will not get any hotter!

Race a balloon-powered car


Build a race cars out of cardboard, straws and a balloon and investigate physics, engineering and motion! Get step-by-step balloon car racer instructions from ExpeRimental.

Chromatography colours

Aim:
To explore how soluble different colours are…or to make pretty patterns!

Method:

  1. Cut a circle of filter paper (such as coffee filter paper)
  2. Place a dot of water soluble felt tip pen in the centre
  3. Cut a narrow strip and fold back so that it hangs down (but is still attached at the centre)
  4. Fill the bottom of a glass with water
  5. Sit the filter paper on top of the glass of water, with the cut-out strip dangling into the water.

As the filter paper absorbs the water, colours will emerge and spread across the paper. Try it again with other colours – they will spread to different distances depending on how soluble they are. Note which colours travelled the furthest; these ones are the most soluble.

You can create some great patterns with this. You can also try the same thing with food colours, colourful sugar-coated chocolate sweets (wet them a bit and rub them on the paper), and also with hot and cold water to see if there is any difference in how quickly the colours spread.

Make giant bubbles


A couple of wooden spoons and some string are all you need to make truly giant soap bubbles! You'll also find out why bubbles are always round with a giant bubbles experiment guide from ExpeRimental.

Kitchen science experiments to do at home

Looking for more easy investigations for young scientists? Try some milk magic or a silly egg trick and experiment with gravity-defying water with the Science Museum's free Kitchen Science activities.