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The rocket mice are so good and so simple.
I know my infant’s class will love that activity.
In my class this would work well with collecting the bottles from home as no two bottles will be the same size. This incorporates maths for the measures part and comparing.
I really like the part about gravity, what makes it come back down. This lesson could be done as one of the last lessons to pull in all previous lessons as a sort of recap.
Story time for space is something I would use often, the actual astronauts reading space themed stories from the ISS. So many excellent links there for using Stellarium to track the planets to send the rockets to, the ISS tracker to see where it is at that time. Why can’t we not see it during daytime, why does it look like a star at night? I have a little device that we can use to look at the sun directly and see it during the day and how it is our star and keeps us warm and with light.
Space and all these lessons are so broad. Yet so specific in some ways and yet they present many opportunities to incorporate and integrate the whole curriculum nearly.
Really liked the making of spacecraft, which would again tie in nicely with the previous Aliens lessons. But even the paper airplanes could be changed to spacecraft and their own designs.These lessons are excellent! really engaging and practical which are deadly for the younger classes and developing their motor skills.
I would use the where do you live lesson. This incorporates very well with the Aliens lesson from before.
I have tried something similar with infants using clay and they produced some excellent work. This is, as I mentioned before a nice way to get the kids to establish that link with their homes and the school. I find infants can struggle with bringing what they have learned out to the real world. Nice to get this link set up from the start.
They could bring in some pictures of their own houses, and we would display them as a starting point.
The point in the lesson about all the houses together is cool as then it becomes a village. I thought this was interesting.
This lesson has loads of STEM possibilities, maths for the measures part, geography for the wider world, history. Also, you could mention the materials used and the different strengths etc. a simple but effective lessonI agree with Kate here that this is lovely for the infants too as it can give them a nice sense of space and place, opening up their world but also linking the two aswell, which can be a challenging concept for infants.
I would start by assessing any prior knowledge to do with Aliens and their planets.
This lesson would follow on nicely from the planets we did before. How do we know there are no aliens on Earth? Would their planet look like ours? Going from there I would lead them to discuss what Aliens could look like and yes bring in something like Aliens love under pants to see if aliens wear clothes which could be a nice segue into Eadai, in Irish. Plenty of opportunities for expressing themselves through art to arrive at that conclusion of what the alien looks like.
They could then design the Aliens planet and the ships they could use to come to Earth.
A lovely way for the infants to end the lesson would be to act out their Alien they have drawn. Silly voices, silly walks. Plenty of lovely child led explorations. This could be a series of lessons for the infant classes.
I completely agree that infants would love anything to do with Aliens and how they could be represented. and that book aliens love underpants is deadly, my own kids loved every minute of it!
I would start with a question about what they already know about the planets.
We would discuss and record the ideas and answers to the questions on the board.
Then we would listen to the planets song and watch a presentation on the planets.This activity pack on the planets is excellent and I particularly like the PE integration with the hoops and they could even be color matched to the planets if you had them.
A lot of nice motor skills development here too with the spinning of the hoops for orbits and axis. Might go over the infants heads but still nice to participate in.
The planet dance has lovely integration with maths and geography for directions.
I would follow that up with the Moon lesson as this is our closet neighbour and something they can investigate at home themselves too. This brings their knowledge out of the classroom and into a wider context. Important for the younger classes to foster and establish this link with the outside world.i would use this inquiry activity too as this has an excellent cross-curricular applications with Maths, SESE. It also is a great way for the kids to identify with Gravity and floating and sinking on the different planets.
I particularly liked the posing the question by the kids themselves. This i liked because it can lead the discussion with the kids own prior knowledge. Then i agree with Nicole in that the kids can then make their predictions about the activity and see then at the end whether they were correct or not. This is great for the Junior classes as this is what they are all about, wondering, thinking and exploring. The prompt is nice also, as this can be the teacher led inquiry.
I like then the applications of the knowledge gained. It brings a practical and useful integration of the knowledge learned. I will be downloading and using the curios minds template too. Nice resource.
Hi everyone, i am a junior infants teacher in Wicklow. I am really looking forward to this course for use in class next year. I used to work for Astronomy Ireland and love everything about Space.
It is only when you see a compiled list like the above that you see the wealth of art, songs and poetry relevant to the night sky! It is amazing to see and think how it has influenced our culture so much!
There are so many Songs / Poems / Art to do with the night sky, ranging from John Keat’s Bright Star, To Coleridge which both would have to be adapted for the primary classroom but still relevant.
I particularly enjoy a lesson I have been doing for years with Van Gogh’s Art piece Starry Night, I twin this with Don Mclean’s song Vincent about the piece and the artist. I know this was mentioned in the slides in the course but I love that lesson and it is something I have done for years. Keane also have some lovely songs but The Night Sky is a lovely piece about the night sky.
For the younger kids there are lots of cheeky songs by Peppa Pig.
I would have done before silhouette art to reflect the night sky and twin it maybe with one of the poems we had studied in English.
The night sky is massive in both what you can see and for lesson content and ideas, across many of the subjects. It is a great over-arching theme to employ.
· How you would incorporate the needs of nocturnal species, especially those that rely on dark skies into school biodiversity plans
On the foot of the last module on light pollution I would encourage the Biodiversity Team in my school to conduct a survey of the lighting areas around the school. Especially those that are used at night time. They could check the bulbs are not producing wasted light and are the right temperature bulbs.
The team with their classes could record and map out the animals / insects etc around the school. This could be achieved by the Webcam idea from another participant. This would show the nocturnal activities happening at the school at night.
At assembley the Biodiversity team could present the collated findings to the school as a whole and ask for suggestions for moving forward.
They could then petition or write to the local businesses and Parents Association to become involved in sponsoring the school to become more biodiversified. Maybe fundraising for proper non-blue emitting lights?
All this has plenty of cross-curricular integration with many subjects
I really like the idea of a webcam too, it really would speak to this generation of tech savvy kids. But it also would make the local nature and wildlife of the school much more real foe them too.
1. Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
I live in a town so light pollution is something that is constant. Even with the new eco bulbs that are supposed to be less polluting it is still a factor.
I am also lucky to live right beside a designated Dark Sky area which is amazing.
I would set some before and after homework with a Q and A sheet to complete when they get home in the day and then at night when dark.
I would ask them to turn off all lights in the house and then go into the back garden and see what constellations or other stellar objects they can see, then turn on the porch light for the garden and then record what they can see now. On the foot of this they could set a schedule where they make sure they turn off the lights at night when they are not in use. The slide with turning and angling the lights was very interesting and a simple thing for the kids to do. I liked the Dark Sky assessment guide for the older classes.