Making a topic like Space hands-on is a real challenge. Unfortunately, we cannot bring our children into space to have a nosey around. They cannot touch, smell, taste, hear or see ‘Space’. This makes it difficult to teach. The hands-on classroom activities outlined in this module are therefore a useful resource for teachers going forward.
I teach first class and some activities I look forward to using in my classroom are:
The Marvin and Milo collection. Making it personal and familiar with the use of repeated characters will definitely increase motivation, engagement and play. It also uses a medium of reading that children don’t get exposed to enough – comics. Automatic interest generator.
Astronomy picture of the day is a fantastic idea. It will ensure we are improving our oral language with discussion and allow us to revisit the topic of Space as and when needed.
Stellarium is such a rich resource. I found teaching cardinal direction so tricky with 3rd class two years ago. We were repeating “rises in the east, sets in the west” but I found it hard to find a video that showed this clearly. I will definitely be using this (alongside my globe & torch!)