I am really impressed with the ESERO lessons – Where do you live?, Animals in the Cold, What clothes to wear, and Hot and Cold. I feel these would be really interesting and valuable lessons to teach next year. In our Aistear we always do the topic of homes and I now think that I will introduce animal homes and environments into this Aistear topic next year. We always talk about different houses and where people live but I have never come across this lovely lesson where the children can cut out the model houses and make a little village. This would provide a lovely learning opportunity for the children and encourage them to think about different types of homes.
The lesson about animals in the cold is very interesting and I would love to experiment with the Vaseline on the children’s hands to demonstrate the greasy layer that penguins and polar bears have to keep them warm.
What clothes to wear is a lovely simple activity that children would love to do and would be simple to set up in the classroom. Letting children look at real clothes and decide what weather they would suit is so practical and would be an enjoyable task for them to do in school.
Hot and Cold is another very simple lesson but like all these lessons, it is well structured and easy to do with a class of very young children.
These are very simple and easy-to-follow lessons that are engaging for children. I will definitely be introducing them to the other teachers in my school next year.
In terms of STEM and SSE, I feel that it is our duty to start teaching children from the start about sustainability and protecting our environment. I feel we should all have some SSE aims to teach the children to become more aware of the world and how to protect at an age-appropriate level.