Hi everyone
My name is Sharon and I will be teaching Junior and Senior Infants this year. I love how the children know quite a lot about space and often surprise me with the knowledge they already have. My favourite thing about space is observing the moon and its different phases.
Inquiry based learning is so important in Infants and is really a great starting point for our learning. This year we did a great investigation into the effects of vinegar on the shell of an egg. Materials needed – 2 eggs, 2 containers, water, vinegar. Describe the egg before beginning the investigation and talking about what would happen if you dropped it, left it in the sun…Put an egg into 1 container and fill it with vinegar, put the other into a container with water – talk about the idea of a fair test, how this is fair etc. Observe the changes over the coming days and describe what happens. After a few days the egg shell on the one in the vinegar becomes softer and eventually it will peel off letting us see inside the shell. The sheer delight on the children’s faces when they realised what was happening and why was great. Inquiry based learning is super for Science lessons but should also be used more across other subject areas.