The module has provided many excellent activities and ideas for the teaching of Planet Earth and space. Fellow participants have shared some brilliant teaching ideas, a lot of which I will use in the coming school year. I have chosen the sun and shadows as the activity that I would like to share my teaching ideas.
The teaching of the sun and shadows allows for the teaching of different areas of the science curriculum, Light , Materials and their properties and Planet Earth and space can all be visited.
To start I would revisit light. What is it? What colour is it? Does it travel. I would ask the children to discuss different source of light. Whare does it come from?
Next I would ask the question of what causes shadows. Children could experiment using torches to make shadows on white board by making shadows of different things and making shadow puppets. The class could discuss if the shadows were different for different objects. Here we could revisit the properties of material e.g transparent / opaque.
Once these activities have been done the children would then focus on the sun being a source of light. Children would then go to the yard and use chalk to draw around each others shadow. Once they have done this the children should be asked how the sun and their body formed the shadow. Throughout the day the children should revisit the yard and from their original shadow they should draw another shadow. Questions and discussion would follow. Is the shadow the same? How has it changed?