Extreme Drawing

Interactive whiteboard science for the classroom

For teachers

The whole class round one sheet of paper

Open play.extremedrawing.com in your interactive whiteboard's browser, go full screen, and the class can watch milk swirl, paint freeze and mould grow in three days. Nothing to install, no pupil accounts. Then use it the same way every time: predict, try, explain.

Open it on the boardFive-minute starters
  • Free in the browser
  • No install
  • No pupil data
Painted illustration of children on a rug watching swirling milk colours on a classroom screen, the painter beside it with a pointer.

At a glance

Age
About 4 to 10 (Reception to Year 6; kindergarten to grade 5)
Time
5-minute starters, or a 30 to 45 minute lesson
You need
A board or touch screen with a browser from 2022 or later, and internet to open the page
Cost
Free: every starter here uses free tools
Accounts
None, for you or the pupils
Fits
Any science topic the starters cover; see the curriculum map

Set up in two minutes

The game needs 3D graphics in the browser (WebGL 2) and a browser from 2022 or later. If the board's own built-in browser is older, the game says so in a friendly message; plug in a laptop instead and use its browser.

The game runs in 28 languages. The address above opens it in English; the grown-ups' area has a language setting.

  1. Open the address

    Go to play.extremedrawing.com/?lang=en on the board. Bookmark it for next time.

  2. Go full screen

    Use the browser's full-screen mode so the paper fills the board.

  3. Check the settings

    Tap For grown-ups and solve the easy sum. There you can turn the sound down or off (music can be switched off separately from the sound effects) and choose where the toolbar sits.

  4. Start a fresh sheet

    Take a new sheet from the Paper panel by the paper. The last class's page is kept in that browser, so it can wait for next time.

One routine for every demo: predict, try, explain

Objective: pupils make a prediction, test it, and explain what they saw using what they know. The routine works for any experiment in the app, and takes 5 to 15 minutes on the board before the real thing.

  1. 1 minute

    Set the scene

    Put the materials on the paper, but don't do the thing yet: the milk and the colour drops, or the food before the time skip.

  2. 2 minutes

    Predict

    Every pupil commits: thumbs up or down, a mini-whiteboard sketch, or a vote. What will happen when…?

  3. 2 minutes

    Try

    A pupil comes up and does it. Let the class watch in silence for a moment, then describe what they see.

  4. 5 minutes

    Explain, then test it for real

    Why did it happen? Use the explanation on the experiment's page, then do the real version where it's safe, or explain why it stays on the screen.

Six five-minute starters

Painted illustration of the painter touching a dish of milk with a soapy cotton bud while red, blue, yellow and green food colouring swirls outwards.

Magic milk

Pour milk, drip food colouring, touch it with dish soap. Predict: will the colours mix, sink or run away?

Painted illustration of the painter peering through a magnifying glass at bread and a strawberry with fuzzy mould spots, beside a calendar with three days crossed off.

Mould in three days

Two blobs of ice cream, salt on one, then Wait 3 days. Predict: which grows more mould?

Painted illustration of the painter pouring purple red cabbage juice into a row of glasses that go from pink through purple and blue to green, with a lemon and baking soda.

Red cabbage paper

Dip the page in red cabbage juice, then paint with vinegar and with dish soap. Predict the colours.

Painted illustration of the painter pointing at a golden-brown heart and star that appeared on paper after ironing, with an iron, half a lemon and a cotton bud.

Secret writing

Write with Secret ink (lemon juice), let it dry invisible, then run the Iron over it. Predict: what will appear?

Painted illustration of the painter studying a splash of blue ink through a magnifying glass, with a hammer, a squashed marker, a scraper, a ruler, an iron and a bank card.

Why won't wet paper burn?

Paint a stripe of water, then light the paper with Fire on one side. Predict: does the fire cross the wet line? On screen only.

Painted illustration of the painter sprinkling salt on a big blue and purple snowflake painting, beside a frosted snowman drawing, gingerbread stars and hearts and a Christmas tree.

Christmas and Sinterklaas on the board

Christmas. Draw a snowflake in glue with Glue & glitter, sprinkle salt from the Sieve and touch it with watercolour: the colour races along the salt. Paint a snowman in wet watercolour and put it in the freezer: feathery ice-crystal ferns grow through the wet paint and stay after it thaws. Then bake real bread from flour, water and yeast.

Sinterklaas. Write a secret message from Sint in lemon-juice Secret ink and let a pupil reveal it with the iron. Draw a big initial, melt a chocolate bar over it with the iron, and then ask: what happens to chocolate left out for three days?

More Christmas ideasSalt painting

Two at the board, and differentiation

Two pupils at once. If your board takes several touches at the same time, several fingers can draw at once without getting in each other's way, so two pupils can work side by side. They both use the tool that is picked; choose it together first.

Vocabulary to put up: predict, observe, compare, evidence, and the words of the topic (melt, freeze, acid, mould…).

  • Support: pupils predict with a thumbs up or down and describe what they see in one word.

  • Core: pupils predict in a sentence (I think… because…) and say whether they were right.

  • Stretch: pupils change one thing and predict again: a slice of fruit instead of ice cream on the mould test, or water instead of milk in the real magic milk.

Will it work on our interactive whiteboard?

It needs a browser from 2022 or later with WebGL 2. Many boards have one built in; if yours is older, the game shows a message, and a laptop connected to the board works instead.

Does it need the internet?

The browser version needs a connection to open. The iPhone, iPad and Android apps work offline, which suits class tablets.

Can we keep what the class made?

Yes. Keep a page in My drawings in that browser, or save it as a picture: in the browser it downloads as a large image you can print or show again.

Is it suitable for Reception or kindergarten?

Yes, for watching and taking turns: the splats, the oven and the freezer need no reading. Keep the predicting to a thumbs up or down.

Full lesson plans

Bookmark it on the board

One address, free, no accounts. The curriculum map shows where each experiment fits.

Open it on the boardCurriculum map