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Greta ideas here. Idea I’ve used in the past is dressing teddy bears with different clothes for different types of weather. Putting the children into groups with one medium sized bear and a variety of baby cloths. The children love this hands on lesson.
Activity set – Space and Aliens
Introduction: Story – Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman.
I would start by using the story Aliens wear underpants as a stimulus for discussing space and aliens.
We would discuss what we know about space and aliens as a group. We could the look at footage of aliens
1. Wax Crayon Painting
Needed: paper, white wax crayons, watery paint, paint brushes.
Children draw an alien from the story using white wax crayons. Ensure they press hard with white crayons while drawing, chunky white crayons work best.
Talk about what the children notice, can they see their drawings? …..explain its difficult to see as both paper and crayons are white.
Now do some magic painting to make their drawings appear.
Children paint over the top of their drawings with watery paint.
Why can they see their picture now?…….Watery paint won’t stick to the wax from the crayon.
2. Flying Alien
Needed: green balloons, markers, toilet roll, sellotape.
Draw an alien face on the (uninflated) balloons using the markers.
Blow up the balloons but do not tie them.
Using the sellotape attach some toilet roll to the slimmer end of the balloon to make a tail.
Let go of the balloon and watch your alien whizz around the room.
3. Grow a Balloon Alien
Needed: bottle, vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, balloon, marker.
Before beginning, blow up a balloon. Pinch the end closed and use a marker to draw an alien face on the balloon and then let out the air. This will make the balloon easier to inflate when doing the experiment.
Place two tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda into the bottle.
Add 200ml of vinegar.
Immediately place the balloon over the mouth of the bottle and hold tightly.
Watch the alien grow as the balloon fills with gas.
If the reaction is slowing down, give the bottle a little shake to mix the ingredients together.
Carefully remove the balloon and tie itI love the idea of using this phrase “My very educated mother just served us noodles”. Great trick to assist the children in remembering the names of the different planets.
the activity set I would chose is ‘The Sun and the Shadows’. I am planning this for a junior infant class. Children are always so fascinated by shadows so I feel this will be a very engaging activity. I would use this as a follow-on from the night/day lesson.
Get the children to sit in a circle. Ask them to remind you of our night/day lesson. Some prompting questions to help – What happens during the day?/ Where does the sun go at night?/ Why do we need to use lights at home at night but not during the day?
I would then ask the children if they know what a shadow is?/ How do we get shadows?/ Can you give me an example?/ What causes a shadow?
I have a bucket of large toy animals and I will ask the children to pick one.
We will go out side and using chalk I will get the children to place their toy down and trace the shadow of their animal with the chalk. We will leave the animal where it is and go back inside.
In the afternoon we will go back outside and I will ask the children if they notice anything?/ Why did the shadow move?/ What caused the shadow to move?
I will explain to the children that the sun moving caused our animal shadows to move. If we don’t have a sunny day that week I will do the same activity in doors using a flashlight as the sun and black paper with white chalk to show our shadows.Sounds like a brilliant idea. I can envisage a lot of tin foil and googley eyes being used in these creations and the children would love it.
Class plan for space week for senior infants
English: Listen to the story ‘Aliens in Underpants Save the World’. Discuss what happened in the story – oral language. Write a postcard from a rocket in outer space. Other books such as ‘The Darkest Dark’ by Chris Hadfield and ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers could be read on the other days also.Maths: Space themed snakes and ladders game that I have in my classroom, space bingo, space themed worksheets. Blast off game from the Top Marks website.
Science: Rocket Mice Activity
Assessment of fine motor skills with cutting aspect of the task. Oral language development to discuss what colours to use, what the mouse might see in space. After the activity a discussion about the size of the bottle/ size of the mouse and whether different results are possible
There were a lot of lovely hands on activities in this module and I would love to sign up for Space Week next year.Activity set: weather
To identify prior knowledge I would ask children if they know any animals that live in the cold and what they look like.
Introduction Video-How do artic animals survive in the cold weather? This will capture the audience and get the children thinking about different coats on different animals and how they are suited to the climates the animals live in. We will then study animals living in the arctic circle and their different features. We will look at the composition of their coats and the colours that suit the habitat e.g. Polar bears are mainly white which allows them to camouflage in the snow. We would then look at our own weather and clothes that are suitable for us to wear in our climate. Examples of waterproof materials such as a waterproof coat could be tested to observe how it doesn’t absorb moisture and the water runs off the fabric. We would then record our findings. we would then design different clothes suited for different weather and the children could design outfits for different weather sets and present them to the class. This could be linked with a fabric and fibre lesson and the children could use different fabrics on their outfits.Parents are usually willing to contribute and in either aldi or lidl they do have space themed toys in the special buts every now and then. They are really cool wooden rockets with characters etc.
Activity Set: Space and Aliens
I would start by using the story Aliens wear underpants as a stimulus for discussing space and aliens.
We would discuss what we know about space and aliens as a group. We could the look at footage of aliens
As an art lesson we would create an alien and add features such as google eyes and foil to create different affects and integrating materials. We could then incorporate some drama by making the aliens come to life and they could tell their story of what it is like in space. What do they do all day, what do they eat, how do the communicate etc
I would then incorporate some phonics aspect to the lesson possibly labelling their alien and giving it a name. We could then use language from the book aliens wear underpants and sound out the words on the IWB to incorporate a phonics aspect to the lesson.This is a fantastic lesson with lots of lovely engaging elements. Lucky children. I particularly like the aspect of the inflating balloon. The children would be very engaged.
The activity I would choose is “The man on the moon”. For junior infants I would introduce the concept of the moon and ask them what the prior knowledge is. I would use the rhyme suggested as a nice starter activity and the idea of the white piece of paper representing the moon and the shapes we can see on the moon. If possible we could go out and observe the morning moon. I would then use the images provided to give the children a variety of images to use. Next I would play the video paxi & the moon phases. We would observe how the moon rotates around the earth and how the phases of the moon appear differently based on depending on the hemisphere in which you live. I think this is of great interest to children. A san art lesson we could make a paper mache model of the moon using a balloon and use this as a stimulus to discuss the different shapes we see on the moon.
Love this lesson and the idea of tracing the animals with chalk. Very engaging and infant friendly. Lets hope the weather plays ball for a change.
Hi, my name is Brenda and I am currently teaching infants. I am looking forward to completing this course as Space is topic I struggle with. I find it’s a very engaging topic for the children so I would like to improve my teaching methodologies for the future. My favourite space fact is the moon is not actually round, it is shaped like a lemon.
An enquiry based lesson I have conducted in infants was planting bulbs and observing how different variables affect growth such as the amount of light, soil and water. The children planted the blubs and we blocked the light access of one plant by placing it in a dark storage press, we didn’t water one and one we looked after as normal. We observed all the results and compiled it into a chart which the children used to present the results to the senior infant classes. The children really enjoy this lesson and couldn’t wait to get into the classroom in the morning to observe the plants daily and observe and discuss the results and findings.
