Cross – curricular lessons for Junior Infants carried out over a fortnight as well as Space themed Aistear stations. I would first tell the children what our new topic is (Space) and then carry out a KWL chart with them – see what the children know already about Space and what they would like to find out. Throughout the fortnight I would recreate a display board
Literacy: Teach ‘Twinkl, Twinkl little star’.
Read the book ‘The Darkest Night’ by Astronaut Chris Hadfield and also the book ‘Busy people: Astronaut’ by Lucy M. George to give the children a sense of what it is like to be an astronaut in space and also what they how they had to train to get there. Discuss orally the books – what their favourite part was, what new information they learned from them, if they would like to train to become an astronaut, etc.
Another book that can be used is ‘The Smeds and The Smoos’ by Julia Donaldson. Have a discussion with the children about what an Alien might look like.
Maths: Counting backwards from 11 (or whatever number the children are comfortable with) to blast off.
Patterns ~ Cutting and sticking patterns to a rocket ship.
History: watch videos of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon in 1969.
Geography: Identify and discuss the sun, the moon and stars. Discuss the differences between day and night.
Science: Explore how shadows are formed and bring the children outside so they can draw/trace around shadows with chalk.
Drama: Pretend to be an astronaut in Space with no gravity. How they would walk on the moon, how does it feel; to be wearing their spacesuit, to breath, to talk, to eat, etc.
Art: Colour in an astronaut outline – take a photo of each child, print and glue into the helmet so each child will be an astronaut.
Aistear:
Role-play: Space travel Agent – the children will be able to pretend to buy tickets for going to different planets in space.
Art and crafts: Design and make an Alien on paper and then 3D. The children will be using a variety of resources – play dough, marla, clay, wire, tinfoil, pipe cleaners, goggly eyes, felt, paper, fabric, wool and anything else they would like to use.
Make slime and use different colours (paint or food dye) and add googly eyes/beads, etc.
Play dough: Laminated mats to make stars, asteroids, saturn’s rings, craters on the moon, satellite, flames for a rocket, alien, planets (available from twinkl).
Sand/water: Using miniature space items – aliens, rockets, astronauts, plants, stars. Moon. Astroids, etc.
Contruction: make a rocket ship using lego.
