A resource I currently find very useful in my classroom with infants is the website http://www.sciencebuddies.org. If you go into the STEM Activities you can find some great hands on and child centred experiments around the theme of Space. An experiment my class particularly enjoyed doing last year was Launching home made baking soda rockets. Another good one is Build a paper rocket. I also find my Space themed Aistear corner a great way for children to learn lots of new vocabulary around the topic of Space as they get to participate in role play activities and they experience what it would be like to be an astronaut or to work in a space station.
A resource I’ve learned about through doing this course and I’m excited to use this coming year is the ESA kids website. It seems to be a very user friendly resource with lots of ideas how to capture the imagination of my students and encourage lots of quality learning in my classroom.
The games section will definitely be a huge hit with my senior infant pupils. I often think a game is a lovely way to conclude a lesson. Games I’m looking forward to trying out with my class are: Space clean up. I feel that this game will integrate nicely with the theme of recycling. Other fun looking games are Solar system Explorer, Spacecraft assemble and the Space memory games.
The learn section has lots of lovely lesson ideas such as The Universe, What is gravity? and Our nearest star. There are some great lesson plans for themes such as Day, night and the seasons and Why is Mars red? There are lots of fantastic downloadable activities and worksheets for the children to complete. I feel that this website is going to help make Space themed lessons much easier for me as the teacher to plan and much more enjoyable for my students.
I’m very impressed with the way the website has a Language section which translates the website into a number of different languages. This will be invaluable for children for whom English is not their first language.