[Ailbhe Curran]

Below is a list of creative ways that I feel Junior Infants could explore the topic of the Moon.

Songs:
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon
Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer
Hey Diddle Diddle

Poems and rhymes:
Star Light, Star Bright
Five Little Stars

Storybooks:
Whatever Next! by Jill Murphy
Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle
How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers
The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
The Smeds and the Smoos by Julia Donaldson

Art activities:
Create a night-sky painting using black or dark blue paper and white/yellow paint for stars.
Use paint splatter to create a starry sky.
Create Moon collages using different textures and shades of grey.
Create a collaborative class mural of the night sky, including stars, the Moon, planets and rockets.
Use chalk pastels on black paper to create a “what I see in the night sky” picture.

[Ailbhe Curran]

Hi Amanda,

I really like how broad your selection of art styles is! Comparing work by artists such as Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock would not only be a great way to explore the night sky, but would also be a fun way for children to explore different artistic movements and styles.

[Ailbhe Curran]

Hi Denise,

I really like your idea of using a moth trap. This would really bring the children’s learning to life and would be a great starting point for introducing the effects of light pollution.

[Ailbhe Curran]

We are very fortunate in our school to have beautiful grounds with trees, fields and a bug hotel, providing a wonderful landscape for observing and studying local wildlife and biodiversity.

I would engage my Junior Infant learners in exploring biodiversity by encouraging them to investigate the plants, insects, birds and other living things that can be found in our school grounds. We would start this unit by going on a nature walk and wildlife hunt outside to identify the various plants and animals that we share our school grounds with. This would be a particularly nice activity to do with our 6th class “buddies” as the older students would be very helpful in directing the children’s focus and encouraging them to truly explore. They could draw or photograph what they find and, back in the classroom, I could share these photos on the IWB for us to discuss where each living thing lives.

I would then introduce the idea of light pollution and ask the children to consider what happens to animals when it becomes dark. We could explore the difference between nocturnal and daytime animals and discuss why some animals need darkness.

As a follow-up, the children could identify lights around the school and discuss whether they are necessary. We could consider simple ways of reducing unnecessary light, such as turning off lights when they are not needed.

All of this would need to be done over a number of weeks with Junior Infants. However, I think it would be a very enjoyable unit of work for them.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by Ailbhe Curran.

[Ailbhe Curran]

Hi Eimear,

I really liked the use of a choice board as an assessment tool. I completed a CPD course last year on UDL and this is the kind of idea that they really encouraged. It is not only a really effective way of motivating the students by allowing them to choose an activity that interests them, but it also gives them the opportunity to choose a tool that they feel reflects them best as a learner.

[Ailbhe Curran]

I live in an urban area in Co. Kildare that has undergone significant development in recent years. Like many towns in Ireland, light pollution has had a huge impact on our area due to street lights, traffic, houses, and other artificial light. It is sad seeing such an orange hue to the sky at night, especially since I grew up in the countryside where the stars were always so clearly visibly.

I would choose to investigate how light pollution is impacting the local area with my Junior Infant class through a simple inquiry-based activity. I would begin by asking the children what they can see when they look at the sky at night. I would then introduce the question: “Can we see the same number of stars everywhere?” We could discuss places where they might see lots of stars and places where they might see fewer.

As a class, we could explore photographs of brightly lit cities and darker rural areas and compare what we notice. I would encourage a lot of talk and discussion with this, asking the children to list things that they can see in the photos of the city that we do not see in the countryside (street lights, lots of houses and apartments, traffic, etc.). I would then direct the conversation towards the night sky – “how are the skies different?” “Why might they look so different?” “Is there anything in the city that might make the sky harder to see?”

For homework, the children could ask their parents to take a photo of the night sky from their garden or window. We could compare these in school and discuss what we can see in them.

[Ailbhe Curran]

Hi Aislinn,

I really like your idea of selecting dates together with your class. This would definitely make the activity a lot more meaningful by giving them a sense of ownership over it.

 

[Ailbhe Curran]

One of my monthly themes for Junior Infants is “Weather and Space”, and I feel that Stellarium would be a really useful resource to integrate within this unit. I would use it to introduce the children to the night sky and to provide them with the opportunity to identify the moon, planets, and stars. This would not only be a strong opportunity for the children to truly see what the night sky looks like but would also lend itself wonderfully to oral language and the use of our key vocabulary.

The story “Whatever Next!” by Jill Murphy would be a really lovely stimulus for this. Following our read-aloud, I would ask the children to recall the various places that the Bear visited in Space and to list some of the things that he saw from his rocket. I would then link this to their own experience of the night sky by asking them to recall what they can see in the sky at night time. Their answers would be recorded on a flipchart.

I would then use Stellarium on the interactive whiteboard to show the night sky and allow the children to identify things they recognise and listed, such as the Moon and stars. I would change the date and time to demonstrate that the sky changes over time and ask simple questions such as, “Can you find the Moon?”, “What do you notice about the stars?” and “Is the Moon in the same place as it was earlier?”
The children could discuss what they can see in their talk partners or else as a whole class. As a follow-up activity, they could draw pictures of the night sky. Being an Infant teacher, I would also likely use it as a stimulus for simple songs and rhymes such as “Zoom Zoom Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon”!

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by Ailbhe Curran.

[Ailbhe Curran]

“Plan how your students could “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day”

I am a Junior Infant teacher so would plan this lesson to ensure that the activities and objectives are accessible and relatable for young students.

I would use the book “Moonbear’s Shadow” by Frank Asch as my stimulus. We would have read this story several times already and the children would have engaged in plenty of talk about the sun, shadows, and how the light changes from day to night. I would have taken the class out to observe our shadows, trace around our friends’ shadows using chalk, and observe how our shadows move in the same way that we do.

I would then use the question “where does the sun go during the day?” as the main inquiry for our lesson. Children would think-pair-share their answers and we would discuss our thoughts as a whole class. I would then tell the class that we are going to work as detectives to see if the sun moves throughout the school day and, if so, identify the journey that it takes.

I would take the class out to the yard three times throughout the day: in the morning, in the middle of the day, and before home time. Each time, I would bring them to the same place on the yard so that our findings would be accurate. We would discuss the movement of the sun/where we can see it now/where we saw it previously. Children would also be encouraged to make a prediction for where it might be the next time we come outside. Children could use iPads to take photos of the sun’s position and I would also take a photo, ideally including identifiable landmarks/features of the school so that we can use the photos to stimulate discussion in class. These photos would also be used on a poster to record our findings.

As a follow on activity, children could draw pictures of the three locations of the sun on a worksheet. We could also observe our shadows outside and see how they have changed in terms of length and position.

[Ailbhe Curran]

Hi Marie,

I really liked how your activities could be integrated so easily into other subjects. Measuring the shadows ties really well into length in Maths, and the children could extend this further by making data charts or showing various shadow lengths as fractions of each other.

I think that students would also really enjoy designing their own sundials. It not only adds an engineering dimension to it (as Shannon mentioned), but also works well as an activity in an art lesson.

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