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Some fantastic ideas here, I really love the rocket cubes and space race maths ideas. They will make maths lessons really fun and engaging for the children.
A class plan to engage with Space Week.
Monday
Introduction- Song ‘Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, we’re going to the moon. Gather what information the children have about space, what do they know and what would they like to learn. We would then make telescopes using cardboard kitchen rolls and different materials to decorate. We would go outside and see what they can see.Tuesday-
Story- Aliens love Underpants. Class discussion on the planets the aliens may have come from, what their homes are like, pastimes, food they eat etc. The children design postcards from a trip they take to visit the aliens.Wednesday-
Watch videos online of rockets blasting off into space. Learn how astronauts live while they are on board. In groups build rockets using a variety of materials e.g. polygons, cubes, cardboard boxes etc…Share and describe your rocket with the class.
Teacher in role as an Astronaut and the children ask a variety of questions.Thursday –
Story – ‘How to Catch a Star’ by Oliver Jeffers. Discuss what do we see in the sky at night – the moon, the stars and develop appropriate descriptive vocabulary.
Looking at the Stellarium website we will look at the sky at night in our area. We will the look at various star constellations. Using picture display the children in pairs will marshmallow star constellations using marshmallows and mini sticks.Friday
Children make rocket mice using paper cones and plastic bottles. We see what rocket mouse travels the furthest and why.
Art- Using wax crayons the children color a piece of white card using colors they would associate with the sky e.g. blue, purple, yellow etc. they then paint over it with black paint. Once the paint has dried they can scrape off some off the paint in different space designs, stars, planets, sun etc.Some really great activities here Siobhan. The sensory weather bottle activity is one I’m sure all children would enjoy. Great ideas coming up with the different ways of representing all types of weather.
The activity I have chosen for this module is ‘Online Resources and Tools’.
There are some fantastic online resources out there to help us to consolidate our teaching and these are all resources that I was unaware of.The ESA and ESA kids websites have a great selection of lessons that can be adapted to any age group. These lessons have various different elements and are based on a variety of topics to do with Space. An example of some of the lessons that I found the children would enjoy are ‘Up, up, up…Build and launch your own rockets’ and ‘A week in the life of an Astronaut’.
The UNAWE website has a fantastic set of educational videos that are aimed at younger age groups. Paxi is introduced to the children as a little alien who comes from planet Ally-O. He has come to Earth to make new friends and to take kids on an adventurous trip of space exploration. These videos really tie in with what we looked at in Module 3.
Finally, the Stellarium website is a powerful tool and resource that all classrooms would benefit from using. In general, children love stars. This website gives them an in-depth look at images of the entire sky, learn the constellations, explore the surface of the moon and zoom in on planets and satellites.
Some great ideas here for Aistear stations Orla. The children would get great enjoyment each day and I really like how they would present their findings at the end of the week.
The activity set that I would choose is the ‘Space and Aliens’ activity set.
Having focused on the planets from Module 2, I feel like following up learning all about the planets with space and aliens would tie in really well.
I would introduce the topic to the children by reading the poem ‘I’d like to meet an Alien’ by Kenn Nesbitt’. We will chat about the poem and the children can share their thoughts on it.
The children will then be given opportunity to create their own alien, I will give them some simple questions before they start to get their imaginations flowing eg. ‘ how many eyes’, ‘how many legs’ , ‘what colour’ is you alien. The children then paint their aliens before recreating them using modeling clay are various other materials, pipe cleaners, googly eyes etc. For circle time the children can introduce their alien to the class, telling everyone their aliens name, what they like to eat and using the knowledge they have from learning about the planets, they can tell us what planet their alien comes from.
We would the discuss what they think aliens would be amazed by if they ever arrived on planet earth. Would they understand our language? Would like like our food? Would they have ever felt water before?
Throughout the week I would also read the books ‘Aliens love Underpants’ and ‘The Smeds and the Smoos’.All the various stations ideas that you have suggested sound great Claire! I especially love the idea of the moon walk station…I can imagine the children would get a great giggle out of recreating what it would have felt like to walk on the moon.
I found all the activity sets in this module to be really helpful and gave great ideas that I will certainly be incorporating into my classroom when we are learning about the sun, the moon, shadows and all things space related.
As I will be teaching Junior Infants next year I think the activity set based on the Planets is one that will really appeal to that age group. I will be using the planets as a theme spread across many different areas of the curriculum over the space of a number of weeks.
I will start be finding out what the children already know and gather what knowledge they already have. I will then read the children a story book based on the planets while displaying visuals for them of each.
I will play the song ‘Family of the Sun’ for the children and we will stop and discuss each verse and it’s description of each planet. I would not expect the children to remember all the words of the song but I know they will enjoy listening to it as it is a catchy tune and the chorus is easy for them to retain.
We will draw pictures of the plants on their whiteboards, make them with their play dough and also paint them in art. The hula hoop game for PE is a great activity that has the children learning while also having fun.
During play time the children can build homes for creatures that they think might live on the planets using a variety of different materials.
The Planets as a theme is a great way of getting the children to use their imaginations and explore possibilities.This sounds like a great lesson that infants would really enjoy! They are learning without even realizing as they are having so much fun. Mice Rockets is definitely a lesson I will be doing with my Junior Infants this year. Thanks for sharing.
Hi, my name is Amy and I will be teaching Junior Infants this year. This will be my fifth year teaching Junior Infants and they are a class group that I really enjoy teaching.
I really do not know much at all about space and all the different elements to it so I am looking forward to learning and gathering lots of knowledge that I can share with my students.
A fact I know about space is that if you were to travel by plane to the planet of Pluto then it would take you over 800 years to get there.
An inquiry based lesson that I have done in the past is the ‘Egg Drop Challenge’. The children were put into groups and given a variety a different materials. They then had to sit down and design a contraption that would prevent a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a a certain height. They then went about putting their designs together before we tested them to see which designs worked and which failed. The children noted and recorded the results and we worked together to figure out why some worked better than others.Hi, my name is Amy and I will be teaching Junior Infants this year. I currently don’t know too much about space but I am looking forward to learning and creating some great space themed lessons for the children to enjoy.
a space themed fact: if you were to fly a plane to Pluto it would take more than 800 years!
