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I have used the Aliens love Underpants storybook before with senior infants, as a basis for my thematic plan for Space and the children loved this story. Of course there were numerous literacy opportunities with using this storybook, including reading the story, orally retelling the story to your partner, sequencing the events in the story, creating a new ending, etc. The children were fascinated with the idea of flying into outer space on a rocket, and thus, we made our balloon rocket as a class. During aistear, at the junk art station, the children had access to a range of materials which they could use to help design their own rocket for blasting into outer space! This allowed for integration with Visual Art also. We listened to, and learned the song ‘5 Little Aliens in a Flying Saucer’, which allowed for integration with Music, Drama and also Number with the counting element involved. I would certainly use the new resources from this module about Aliens if I were teaching this unit of work again.
Well done on creating such a detailed plan for Space Week Sinéad! I will definetley be taking note of a few of these activities for space week in October to do with my own class 🙂
The activity from this module set that I would be very interested in trying is the ‘Investigation Children’s Coats’ activity. I really like how there is multiple opportunities for integration within this activity, for example it focuses on developing the children’s descriptive language of materials using the Feely bag, and it also incorporates a maths elements, when collating data based on the number of children wearing each colour coat in our class, and displaying this data graphically, which would definitely suit the older side of the junior classes. We could have a class teddy/puppet who then arrives with a problem to the class; there is snow forecast for this weekend and he has no coat and is afraid he will freeze! I would allow the children, after a discussion on how we could keep teddy warm in the winter, to design and make a coat for teddy using a variety of different materials. Each child/group will present their coat to teddy, and put it on him, and they will explain to the class how they made the coat, what materials they used and why. Teddys assistant shopper (one of the children/the teacher) could then decide which coat they like the most!
This sounds like a fabulous lesson Suzy, and has an element which will engage each and every child i’m sure!
Hi Deirdre, i have taught a lesson very similar to this before to Senior Infants and they loved it, especially the ALiens love Underpants storybook, and the Five little Aliens song!
These activity sets are filled with ideas for the classroom. One activity set that I am particularly interested in using is the Stars activity set. Following the Curious Minds Framework for Inquiry, I have tried this lesson before and found it worked really well. Our inquiry was based on wondering ‘How to catch a star’.
Engage: Read ‘How to catch a star’ by Oliver Jeffers. Start a discussion on the stars and land on the ‘I wonder’ question: ‘I wonder…How can we catch a star?’.
Investigate: Allow the children to think and wonder and come up with ideas on how we can catch a star. Previously, I had children suggest that we blast a rocket into space and reach out to catch a star, land on the moon and wait until a star falls, etc. Most of the time, their ideas involve flying into outer space. The children can then, in groups, design and make a rocket that we can use to blast into space and catch a star!All of these activity sets are filled with opportunities for meaningful and engaging learning experiences.
One of the activity sets that could be used is the Planets Activity set. A sample activity I would use is for introducing young children to the names of the planets.
I would begin by using one of the planets songs or reading a storybook to the children to introduce them to the names of the planets. We would then learn a little bit more about each planet. I would split the children into groups and assign each group with a planet. During playtime/Aistear/Art, the group will make a model of the planet using paper maché. If possible, we would then try and display the planets in some way, such as hanging them from the ceiling, to make a model of our solar system.
As an extension activity, or during PE, we would play the planet game using hula hoops, as a consolidation task for our learning, and try to remember the names of our planets.
Hi Laura, similar to others I love the idea of this activity and the child would love to keep track of the changes throughout the day! I would certainly try it out!
Hi Kevin, I’ve also taught this lesson and found that it worked really well! i like the idea of having a free writing task as an extention activity also!
Hi, My name is Aoife, and I will be teaching first class in September!
I have a big interest in STEM and Inquiry-based learning, and also in Space. My favourite space fact is that the sun is actually a giant star!
My favourite inquiry-based lesson which i have taught before would have to have been the fingerprints lesson. I taught this lesson with 1st class, and they loved it! We arrived back from breaktime and discovered that someone had stolen all of our sweets from our rewards jar, and we concluded that someone from 2nd class had stolen them. The children already had investigated fingerprints the previous lesson, by scribbling thickly with a pencil on white paper and imprinted, and examining their fingerprints from there. They invited the 2nd class in, and we examined their fingerprints and compared those to the fingerprints left on the car, and found our culprit! The children loved this lesson, and I found that they were really engaged and using their own inquiry skills to investigate.
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