An inquiry based approach I would take to a lesson with Junior Infants would be demonstrating how the Earth orbits the sun using our own shadows.
I would start the lesson with a question – do we think that the Earth spins slowly or stands still. Children use the think/pair/share to come up with their answers and reasons as to why. I will then explain to them how the Earth moves very slowly everyday around the sun which is why we have day and night.
Each child would be provided with a piece of chalk on a sunny day. We would head out to the yard three times on that specific day for example at; 9am, 11am and 1pm. The children would each be given a specific space on the yard and they would have to draw their own shadows. They would do this three times in one given day at the times mentioned above and it would show them how their shadow has moved as the sun has moved during the day.