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Hi Helen, I really like your idea for the younger children to work with older children for Science Week. I think they would both learn things from each other and come up with some very creative ideas. Great plan!
I have chosen to make a plan for Space Week 2026 as it will be very useful to refer back to this and put my plan into action in October.
I would begin by creating excitement about Space Week the week before. I would use the website https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ (Astronomy Picture a Day) and show the children a new photo every day, discussing what they see.
On Monday I would focus on the stars and have the children create constellations from matchsticks and playdough. I would use the discussion part of the lesson that I already created on constellations in an earlier module.
On Tuesday I would have the children create Martians using clay and junk art. They could also design UFOs for the Martians.
On Wednesday I would concentrate on galaxies. The children will view a video of the actual size of space and then design a galaxy. I would encourage them to think about; What planets would be there? Who would live there? They would make galaxies in bottles using glitter, water, food colouring, shaving foam and baby oil.
On Thursday I would focus on Planet Earth in Space. I would read the book Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers. We would collaboratively create a guide for how to live on Earth, using shared writing.
On Friday we would go out with a bang, literally! I would engage the class with a picture of a rocket. They would explore a variety of materials and plan a design to make a rocket. I would have different materials on each table to create the different rockets. We would ideally take them outside to ‘launch’ them.
This would be my plan for my Junior and Senior Infants.Hi Louise, this sounds like a really fun lesson. My class would love dressing up. I would adapt this for my Junior and Senior Infants by differentiating my questions and maybe prompting them more. But overall I think this lesson would work really well with all young children.
The activity I have chosen is the lesson ‘Where Do You Live?’. I always find that children love telling me where they live and describing their locality and town. I remember once using Google Maps and some of the children pointed out their houses for everyone to see. They had never been so engaged and all wanted a turn. So I like the idea of this lesson.
Firstly I would show the children a photo of my house and I would describe it for them. I would model using language that I would like them to use e.g. a black roof, a red front door, two big windows etc. I then would open up a discussion on their houses and choose some children to describe where they live. I would use the worksheet that comes with this lesson and have the children find the house that is most similar to theirs.
Then, using márla I would ask the children to make a model of their house. We would place all the houses together and discuss what we are missing. I would encourage to children to think of all the things that make up our town. It would be nice to invite other classes to view our town and to document it with photos too. I would make a display in the classroom.Hi Rachel, I really like the idea of introducing the lesson theme through a story. I was actually trying to think of a storybook that was appropriate myself, so thanks for the good idea.
For my class of Junior and Senior Infants I would begin the lesson by singing the nursery rhyme, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I would ask the children if they think there is only one star in the sky like the song suggests. I would use this use to begin a discussion on the number of stars in the sky. I really liked the idea of incorporating an art lesson into this science lesson to help the children understand the amount of stars that exist. I would hopefully be able to take the children outside and allow them to create their splatter paintings. I would have a class discussion on the results and how many stars are there (too many to count).
I really liked the idea of children creating their own constellation. I would use this activity for a follow-up lesson. I would show them a number of constellations and we would discuss what they look like. The children would then get creative and design their own ones. I think they would really like this lesson.
Hi Emer, I really like the activity you’ve chosen. It’s great to bring children outside for active and engaged learning. I think they would love this activity. I like your link with Art as well.
I really loved the Activity set on the Planets. I would have struggled to find fun ideas on how to teach something as abstract as the planets. The lesson with the hoops is incredibly fun and I would imagine that the children would go home raving about what they had done in school. I think it would make the concept more concrete for young children. I liked the way it started with asking the children ‘what town do we live in, what county, what country, what planet?’. This would straight away get the children thinking. I would follow this lesson and teach the song ‘Family of the Sun’. It’s already to the tune of a lot of my rhymes that I sing throughout the day and I think the children would enjoy it. I think that I would link this lesson with Art and have the children design their planets. This would encourage creativity and reinforce learning.
Hi Elaine, I really like your idea. Especially now with the hot weather we are having, and will continue to experience, the children would be very interested in this topic.
I would use a floating and sinking activity for an inquiry based activity in my classroom. Young children love water play and I think they would be excited by this topic. I would begin by showing them a toy boat in a bowl of water. I would use inquiry by encouraging the children to make predictions as to how the boat floats. I would then ask them to look at a range of objects and predict which items will float before testing each object. Instead of telling them which objects will float or sink, I would ask open-ended questions such as, “What do you think will happen?” and “Why do you think that?” This allows children to think critically and explain their ideas. During the investigation, I would encourage the children to observe carefully and discuss what they notice with their classmates. I believe this activity would create a fun and engaging learning environment where every child can participate. It develops important scientific skills such as observing, predicting, questioning, and communicating.