An activity from this module that I will do in my Senior Infants classroom next year will be the Investigating our Coats idea. I would do this as a whole class lesson ideally at the end of a unit of work on materials so the class would have already carried out other investigations on materials and be familiar with the various characteristics and vocabulary such as hard, soft, furry, fuzzy, rough, smooth, shiny, waterproof, colour words etc. I would begin by getting ready for yard or home-time earlier and singing our Cuir ort do chóta song as a trigger, then gather the children in a circle for the lesson with the game; If you are wearing a pink coat join the circle, a coat with a zip, buttons, shiny coat, furry coat etc etc. to revise and further explore the materials / coats vocabulary.
We will then investigate the types and characteristics of the coats further with question such as What colour do we see most in our coats today; predict and count/ make a data chart if time permits. I would then ask the children to make up other questions about the coats for us to “predict and count how many”, I could extend this by prompting them to include more than 1 characteristic – how many coats are pink with buttons? Make a real Venn diagram with hoola hoops for the children to step into each time if time permits.
A follow up activity for the week after in Aistear would be for the children to design their own coat for one of the dolls in Junk-Art using materials such as felt, plastic, cotton wool, pipe cleaners, sequins, pencils, crayons, buttons, fabric and fibre; discussing what season/weather it is and why they are choosing particular materials for the coat; and where she may be going in it.