My name is Ciara Kelly and I will be teaching Junior Infants in September. This will be my first year with them so I am looking forward to it.
My fun fact about space is There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. This always fascinates every child no matter what age they are!
My lesson on inquiry based learning:
We will have a class teddy and he will go home with one child every weekend on an adventure and what he gets up to will be recorded in a scrapbook hopefully with photographs and drawings. The child will then return on Monday and present what Teddy got up to. Throughout the year we will use Teddy as a stimulus for a lot of our lessons.
For a lesson on waterproof materials I would suggest we need to make an umbrella for Teddy for his weekend trips because he lives in Ireland!
1. I would present the class with a problem – it’s raining and Teddy has no umbrella we need to make one.
2. Using our water table the children would then investigate what materials are waterproof and also discuss any other materials they suggest would be suitable. Here there would be lots of discussion, critical thinking, investigative learning and lots of predicting.
3. I would give the children lots of materials such as kitchen paper, cardboard, tinfoil, newspaper, plastic, and any other materials the children come up with!
4. All of the materials would be tested and we would discuss the term waterproof and list objects/materials that were waterproof. Using construction straws we would make an umbrella and put the plastic onto it to create an umbrella for teddy. Teddy could be photographed then with his new umbrella.