I hope to promote Space Week in my school this coming October and I have a wealth of resources and knowledge to share with my fellow teachers and students upon completing this course. I would like to create a school folder with activities, books, videos, links, games, art and general resources relevant to each class level (Infants,1st-2nd etc.) that the teachers and students can dip in and out of.
When planning a lesson/activity it is clear that we need a good ‘prompt’ stimulus to capture the children’s interest and attention and evoke conversation with their peers. I have read both ‘Aliens in Underpants’ and ‘The Way back Home’ and the children enjoy these stories. These would be a good prompt in talking about Space Theme in general. The Stellarium website or plug in light would be great for stargazing and the Planet’s Song is a great way for the children to learn the names of the planets and some information a fun way. I would incorporate the Hoop activity (Planets/Sun/Moon) in my lessons this week in PE and use alien role-play in drama and Star Splatter art as an integration across all the topics.
I would aim to include a bank of simple, fun science experiments for each class level- dancing raisins, separate salt and pepper using static electricity, the gummy bear experiment, inertia etc.
Videos of rockets launching, astronauts performing simple tasks in space such as ‘brushing their teeth, eating etc’ are more difficult due to a lack of gravity. I think these particular videos would spark great conversation and inquiry among the students.
STEM activities would include Design and Making rockets and exploring some features of how they work. Lego and coding activities could be a great tool to use with middle/senior classes to encourage them to do more project/inquiry-based projects! The Fizzy Launcher instructions are very helpful.