The activity I have chosen for this assignment is the Rocket Mice. I think this would work well with 1st or 2nd. For infants, we would need to provide some help with the cutting section.
We would start by eliciting prior knowledge about rockets. Maybe some of the pupils would have rocket toys, pictures, drawings on their bags, shoes, etc. We would compile a list of all they know and discuss their opinions on what makes a rocket fly.
I like this experiment in particular as the pupils can be creative with their mice. They can choose to leave them plain or decorate them or even have additions like feathers, beads, etc. which would, a) allow for creativity and b) facilitate a discussion around the weight of the mouse in relation to how far it travels.
Pupils would bring in their own milk cartons. Again this would allow for interesting comparing and contrasting of the height reached by different mice attached to different containers.
Ideally this experiment would take place outside on a calm day against a backdrop of a block wall in our school which could be numbered upwards at each block to allow for a degree of measurement.
In groups, the pupils could experiment with different sizes of cartons, different weights of mice, even noticing different heights when different levels of squeezes are used. They will be encouraged to identify what makes the mice rise and what makes them fall. This lesson will also be integrated with Maths as they count the number of blocks passed by each mouse.