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Engage: Story – How to catch a star by Oliver Jeffers – This book is about a boy who loves stars very much. He wants to catch some of his own but how? Could he climb a tree? Go to the top of the tallest building in the world? The boy has a rocket but it is made of paper and doesn’t fly very well. Can we help this little boy build a rocket so he can get to the stars?
Explore and wonder about a selection of pre made rockets. Questioning: Why do we need rockets? How do they go up, get faster, slow down, how do they work? Use the Marvin and Milo cartoons about rockets to illicit questions from the children and wonder what might happen. Play with rockets and understand how they work.
Starter question and predictions: Does the shape of the rocket matter? Ie: does a cylindrical rocket go faster than a cuboid shaped rocket?
Carry out investigations using cylindrical rocket vs a cuboid rocket and ensure fair testing. Compare two launches. Is there any difference?
Next step: Apply learning into other subjects – Maths: 2D/3D shapes/ Science: Alien Chemistry, PE: Foam javelin throwing/ Making and launching paper airplanes.
Karen thank you for this very detailed outline of how you would integrate space week across the curriculum. A great resource.
Jamie your time in China must stand to you so much in the classroom now. Having that first hand experience in a different country for so long would be so beneficial to the children across many subject areas – I’m sure answering questions on China comes so easily to you now. I like your idea of connecting with another class in a different country to compare weather.
I would look at the activities surrounding weather. I always find it so interesting to compare the seasons in Ireland to the seasons in different countries such as Australia and then compare Irish weather to more drastic climates/ seasonal changes in other parts of the world. I have taught children who have lived in and have visited different parts of the world so it is always interesting for the class to hear about the different types of weather they experienced in a certain country first hand. Talking about the seasons in Ireland always lends itself to the interesting conversation about why Ireland has ‘different’ seasons to other countries – based on the old celtic calendar. Children could keep a weather and temperature chart for the a couple of weeks and make and design a rain gauge to measure rainfall. This could then be completed throughout each season and results compared. I liked another posters idea about getting in contact with another class in a different country to compare the weather.
I really like the idea of creating a Martian/ alien. I am always so impressed with children’s imaginations when I ask them to construct/ design something in science or art. Last year the children loved to use left over wooden forks from the hot lunches to create little creatures, they added googly eyes and pipe cleaners – I really should have made this into a learning opportunity such as creating an alien/ Martian! I would start off the lesson with a trigger and then have a discussion with the children about what life is like on mars and compare it with where we live. Explore a little bit about Mars through investigation and then discuss with the children what an alien might look like. Design and make an alien using recyclable materials or modelling materials.
This lesson can easily be integrated across a range of subject areas and that is why it is so appealing to me.
Literacy: Story, diary of an alien, oral language discussion, write a letter to an alien, recipe for aliens favourite food.
Maths: 2D/3D shapes – create a mars monster.
Science: Space and aliens, design and make
Drama: Landing on mars/ meeting an alien/ questioning an alien about what life is like on Mars, role play.
Art: Creating a martian/ you’ve landed on mars – draw what you see from the window of your spaceship, create a spaceship.
Thanks for sharing this poem Frances and Mary. I really enjoyed it! It could be used across a few curricular areas such as Literacy, art, drama, science.
The Sun and Shadows
Science Focus: Explore how shadows are formed. Sun activities/ What makes Shadows?
Trigger: A picture of a child on a sunny day with a shadow and a child on an overcast day without a shadow. Youtube Video: Peep and the big wide world – Shadow Play(130) Peep and the Big Wide World: Shadow Play – YouTube
Wondering: Do you notice anything about this picture? Why does one child have a dark shadow and the other does not? What gave him that shadow? What does the sun give us? Is the sun important? Where is the sun?
Exploring: Go outside and draw children’s shadows on tarmac with chalk. Explore shadows of different objects in the yard. Questioning: Why do we have shadows? Do we always have shadows? Why/ Why not?
Investigate: Can we make any other shadows outside? What size, colour, shape will they be? Children will make their own shadows with bodies and objects in the yard that teacher has laid out. Do the shadows have eyes, nose, mouth? Can we see the colour of the leaves or the persons shoes in a shadow?
Ask children to draw shadows for people and objects on a worksheet. Ensure they understand that shadows are just dark – they don’t have any features – just black. Make shadow puppets.
Next Steps: Read the book ‘What Makes a shadow’? and sequence the different stages of the story by cutting out the pictures and putting them in the correct order.
Reflect on the lesson – What went well? What would I change? Did the children meet the learning objectives?
Hi, my name is Aisling and this year will be my 5th year teaching 1st class. My favourite space fact is that one Venus day is longer than one year on Earth.
Inquiry based activity Infants: Floating and sinking/ Waterproof materials
Trigger: Scenario Picture of Teddy’s friends on the other side of the lake. Engage children with the scenario – how will we get teddy to the other side of the lake safely?
Wondering: I wonder… how we can get teddy across the lake safely? Ask children to share ideas and explore these ideas with the class.
Explore: Discuss all of materials for investigation – the different types of materials we could use to make a boat for teddy. How are they similar/ different to each other, get the children to share ideas.
Starter question: What is the best material to use to float on the water?
Predictions of what will happen. Record predictions on board or on their own paper record.
Conduct investigation using various materials such as plastic bottles, milk cartons, yoghurt cartons, glass jar, paper, cardboard, wood, metal etc to see which will float in a bowl of water. Use record sheet given. Compare with other materials provided. Which works best/ worst and why?
Interpret the data by getting the class to combine the results and create a pictogram with smiley faces for each material used. Ask children questions based on the pictogram. Compare results to predictions and make connections to real life. Discuss which materials were best and worst for floating and why.
Design and make a boat for teddy to get across the lake to his friends in.
Reflection /teacher reflection – have we met learning objectives, what went well, what would I change, integration?
Aoife thank you for this recommendation of his book. I will definitely use it with my upcoming first class. I was so interested in Chris Hadfield’s social media posts and videos of his life in space. My class last year loved his informative vidoes.
Skill to develop: Use of ICT to develop knowledge construction
How to develop this in my classroom: It is important to allow students to use ICT directly and have control over their own ICT use. I will offer them the opportunity to use the school ipads, laptops, clevertouch, internet, online digital technology to develop knowledge construction. Children will use powerpoint or sway to create a presentation for the class on the information they have gathered. Children will use internet sources on a chosen topic to gather information. They will then in groups evaluate the credibility of this information before they select which information to use in their projects. As well as using internet sources, children can learn to use email to communicate with children in different areas of Ireland or the world depending on what information they need to gather. Children can act as designers of ICT and use office 365 or one note to share these findings and create an online record which can be made available for others to use, enjoy and learn from. In class children can share the information gathered with peers on Clevertouch whiteboard, laptops or ipads. Children will then engage in meaningful discussions, question time and peer assessment.
Digital technology in the classroom:
Used across all curricular areas where I can curate a lesson that is engaging, interesting, interactive and worthwhile for the students. I have also recently had a Clevertouch board installed in my classroom which has been a welcome upgrade from the outdated smart board but I have not used it to its full potential yet. Over the past couple of years, I have become a lot more familiar with the use of online digital technologies in the classroom such as seesaw, google classroom, teams etc. I also use these digital technologies as a means of portfolios, assessment, collaboration with other teachers and as a teacher – parent portal.
Apply SSE guideline to teaching and impact of developing own use of DT at school level?:
It is important to have staff members who are passionate and proactive leading the development of DT in a school. Staffs need to get together and thrash out SMART goals and targets in conjunction with using the Digital Learning Framework as a starting point. Using something like forms for a short staff and parent survey could be really beneficial to the development of the SSE plan. A lot of the time with developing DT in schools, it can come down to trial and error and I have even experienced this throughout lockdown when I was trying to get my head around the most suitable DT for home learning, what works for one age group might not work for another. The staff need to buy into the SSE plan and digital learning framework and everyone in the school community needs to work together for it to be successful.
There are many ways that OneNote and ON learning tools can support learning for students in the classroom. One note offers opportunities to challenge higher achievers whilst also being very accessible to those with SEN. I particularly like the immersive reader resource as it is so accessible to those with reading difficulties, emerging readers and EAL children. I like the feature where you can divide one note into colour-coded sections and it will be very beneficial to visual learners and children that have organisational difficulties in my classroom. This is a fantastic resource and one I will use in the future. I will also be using OneNote to store information and hopefully use it with my class when doing projects, sharing notes, giving feedback, assessment and compiling information.
Department: Used as a simple and efficient means of collaboration with other staff members. Sharing files, documents, resources, holding meetings.
Classroom: Used as an assessment tool: Set assignments, assess work, give feedback and create a gradebook per assessment for students.
Challenges: Younger children may find it harder to navigate. Some staff members may need extra training/ trial and error to become more confident and proficient when using Teams. Lack of digital devices in classroom environment.
Opportunities: Quick and efficient way to stay connected with staff members across a variety of platforms. Ongoing assessment in the classroom. Building a bank of assessments and resources for use in future years. Might prove useful for harder topics covered in class – children and parents can access pre-recorded explanations and answers associated with work completed in school.
