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Hi Ellen
Thanks for sharing these lovely resources. Making shadows with the various materials, and means lends itself so nicely to questioning and critical thinking skills.
Module 3 Forum Post
I found this module to be very broad and lent itself to allowing for a variety if scope to engage children in many different ways and to motivate and interest children’s engagement with this topic.
For this reason I felt it was worthwhile considering the amount of content in a lesson to complete with my class so I would like to see how station teaching would work to incorporate a variety of activities in this lesson and or series of lessons.
To introduce the lesson I would have an image on the white board on display of Van Gogh Starry Night painting to evoke talk and discussion about what they see, how they perceive it differently. Things the children like/dislike about the painting. We would discuss the title of the painting and how the title gives us a clue as to what we are learning about today.
I will create a teacher designed interactive powerpoint ensuring children are encouraged to tell me what they know, and would like to know more about stars. I will introduce the word ‘Constellations’ on a banner with colours- yellow, blue, greens, black as its background to engage thinking about colours in the night sky. The children will learn that constellations are patterns tat people have made up using the stars as dots to join other dots. We will explore some names of constellations- and utilise some clips from the Blackrock Castle observatory site.
A station will be set up where children can create a Starry Night scene and another for making constellations. The children will be supported and language will be used during these activities reinforcing new learning.
Following these tasks, we will return to the group area where we will look at our initial understanding about what we knew already about stars and constellations and add to our KWL chart.
Further extension of this activity would be where we discuss ‘Aliens’ and thoughts about whether they exist or not. A drama lesson could ensue wherby the children draw their interpretation of an alien and act out a day in the Life on an Alien!
Module 5- Rockets and Alien Chemistry
To explore this topic. I would introduce the picture of the cover page of Alien in Underpants. The children would predict and make connections about the cover page. The children will listen to the story.
I will then write the name Constantin Tsiolkovsky and show an image of him and explain where he is from and how he is connect to space and rockets.
( I have various ages/abilities in my class, therefore I feel the alien in underpants book would be an appealing stimulus for the younger children and the information about Constantin would appeal to the older children. )
Exploring and Using
The children would then get to explore some pre-made rockets. We would use talk and discussion to decide which ones work best and why. We would refer to primary science.ie for different ways to make rockets. We would investigate how they are better by launching them and looking at the materials.
Then I would give the children to make the rocket with the effervescent tablet and tube. We would pair older/younger children together to complete this. We would discuss how the tablet is helping the experiment. Reference will be made to the work of Constantin also.
To complete the activity each child will be given A4 paper to draw/design their own rocket and they can use an array of materials to see which way they would like to launch it. At the end the class will come together. We will replicate a launching pad and use the countdown and blast off language to re-enact a rocket launch.
Module 4 Assignment
I referred to the Weather Activity set to support this assignment, alongside the Animals in the cold, (ESERO, 07), Children’s Coats Curious Minds and Hot and Cold (ESERO, 12)
Introduction
To support engagement and wonder.
A variety of styles of children’s coats are laid around the classroom. The children will be asked what they know already about how to describe the properties of coats. Through discussion introduce new words- waterproof, insulating, winter coat, summer coat, rain-jacket, heavy, thick, cosy, no sleeved etc.
We will discuss what we want to know by investigating the jackets in groups around the room. The children will take time to hold, explore, feel, compare the coats. In the centre of the room some words/visuals will be available for the children to match a coat with a word/visual to describe it. We will also encourage the children to think about the seasons of the year where the coats would be suitable for and have pictures to represent weather and seasons around also.
We will discuss then any new learning that has taken place and link it to what we did know on our mind map on the wall. I will demonstrate to the children that by investigating the materials we have learned new information.
The children then can take materials- fabric, glue, markers to create their own coat suitable for a season. They can pick the season from a pot and create a coat accordingly.
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I love the ideas you have presented. I have a very varied ability class and I think the variety of tasks/activities would be very supportive to engage all of the students supporting them to develop scientific inquiry and building knowledge and inquiry. I do find that with science we are racing to get it completing and not spending the time to allow the children to investigate and comment on their findings.
I love the ideas you have presented. I have a very varied ability class and I think the variety of tasks/activities would be very supportive to engage all of the students supporting them to develop scientific inquiry and building knowledge and inquiry.
Love the idea of sharing the constellation stories with their families. Think pair share is a fabulous way too to get the children using the scientific language.
Inquiry Based Activity – ‘Can we catch shooting stars?”
To engage the class I would show pictures of shooting stars, elicit from them what do they see in the pictures. I would have a video of shootings stars available to watch also.
Create a class wall of our thoughts/predictions about this inquiry to refer back to later. To support this I would read or provide a media reading of the book ‘How to catch a star’ by Oliver Jeffers. Before reading elicit from the children how they think we could catch a star and or if they thought that this is possible.
After reading provide opportunities to discuss the story and how the boy discovered that he could not catch the shooting star. This will open an opportunity to teach explicitly the facts about why we cannot catch a shooting star. This supports students to begin to see difference from imagination to scientific thinking.
Teach the facts: Shooting Stars:
They are not stars.
They are space rocks.
They melt away.
Provide extension video to support these facts:
– Investigate : Get the children to rub their hands together. Elicit from them if they notice their hands getting warm. Then explain that the space rock rubs against Earth’s air just like their hands, but so fast that it gets hot enough to turn into a flash of light
Provide a hands on activity to further enhance our knowledge about shooting stars. Stimulus: Provision of images of constellation on the activity table. Provide black construction paper, chalk to create our own constellations. Hold our constellations to the light to see the shapes/designs/patterns created.
Conclusion: Reflect on learning attained. Refer back to the class mind map/predictions about Shooting stars and ask the children to discriminate which prediction was factual and scientific and which ones are imaginative.
Take next step:
Plan a visit to local library to source more materials about space.
Extension Activity-
Create a shooting star spinner toy
Module 2
Activity Set: The Moon
Aim: To learn that the moon is a sphere, that the moon does not always look the same and that figures in the moon are fantasy.
Introduction:
Stimulus: White paper circle- elicit from the children if it looks like the real moon? Then using a crescent shaped piece of paper elicit if it still looks like the moon. Talk and discussion around times when they have seen moon, and how it has looks different.
Investigate:
Discuss 2D shapes that we can see in our classroom. Ask the children to identify 2D pictures that remind them of the moon. Next ask the children to find something 3d that reminds them of the moon. I would have some resources set around the room for success. When we find a sphere shape ( a ball). I would ask the children if they can see its shape like this in the sky?
This is when we can teach that to our eye the moon appears like a 2D flat shape in the sky yet reinforcing that it is a 3D sphere.
Activity: Explain to the children that we are going to investigate what the moon looks like and why some people see shapes on the moon.
Small group activities: Research pictures of what the moon looks like. The children will draw/write words to describe images they have found.
Whole class task: Compile thoughts about images and discuss the different ways people viewed the moon from various images. Engage the children in discussion after listening to the story ‘Moon Man by Tomi Umgerer
Conclusion: Create learning wall about what we have learned to date about the moon. Higher ability: write a fact about shape of moon and add pictures- drawn or printed. Lower ability: write 1 word about the moon and paste picture onto our moon board.
Extension Task:
Read aloud: Moon stories Around the World. Talk and discussion to elicit from the children about the different views of the moon. Decipher between fact/fiction.
Hi Ciara,
Love this idea of the “space spill” lots of opportunities for hands on active learning, as well as supporting children’s enquiring minds.