Investigating in 3rd class « St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

21 Mar

Investigating in 3rd class

On a walk around the local area, we noticed that many things are made from concrete, for example buildings, walls and footpaths. So we decided to make our own concrete blocks to investigate how concrete is made and how it can be used in construction.

Our ingredients: sand, cement, stones, water

Mixing the ingredients together. We used a ratio of 1:2:3 which meant 1 cup of cement, 2 cups of sand and 3 cups of stones mixed together with some water.

Mixing was tough so we took it in turns!

Each group made a batch of concrete and everyone made their own individual block.

We used recycled takeaway boxes as moulds for our concrete blocks. When we poured the wet mixture into each box, we gave the box a little shake to help the concrete to settle and we saw bubbles of air rise to the surface.

We left the concrete blocks to dry over the long weekend. We placed a wooden knife in each mould to help remove the concrete once it had set.

When the blocks were dry they were quite easy to remove from the boxes. They had a lovely smooth surface!

When all the blocks were ready, we spent some time investigating different ways they could be stacked to build a wall.

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