Activity: Rocket Mice
We would read the book ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers. This would act as the stimulus for the lesson. We would have a whole class discussion on how we could get the Martian back home.
Following the class discussion we would look at a variety of different rockets. I will show the children a video of a rocket launching. In pairs or small groups the children will then create and launch their own rocket mice.
The children will launch their rocket across the floor,(prior to starting the children will record their predictions) we will integrate our maths skills of measuring to measure the distance the mouse has travelled. The children can use concrete manipulative such as unifix cubes or links to measure the distance travelled. The children will record their answers. Following the activity we will have a whole class discussion noting the findings and answering some questions i.e. which mouse travelled the furthest, why?