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Hi Niamh,
I love the way you have linked learning about the stars with Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Starry Night is also a good picture to start a conversation about do stars really twinkle, are they moving, and why it appears that they are moving.
Rocket Mouse activity lesson:
At the beginning of the week I would teach the poem In Winter I get up at Night by R.L.Stevenson. I teach it every year in school when the nights begin to get darker. It’s a great way for children to think about differences in summer and winter.
I would then introduce the topic to smaller children using one of the books recommended in Module 5-The Way Back Home.
I would discuss what the children already know about the moon, rockets and the first landing on the moon to check for prior knowledge. I would ask the children what they would like to find out about the topic and take a record of their questions. If a child said they would like to learn about rockets I would take this opportunity to introduce Rocket Mouse!
I would show them Rocket Mouse already made and tell them a story about how he wants to get back to the moon to his family.
I would then show the children how to make the rocket mouse with vitamin container, fizzy vitamins, paper for ears and body, markers for mouth and whiskers and fake eyes.
When Rocket Mouse is shot ‘into space’ I would ask the children what powered the rocket to move. I would introduce vocabulary and encourage the children to use words such as propel, launch, gravity, ignite, chemical reaction.
As a follow up activity children could draw Rocket Mouse back on the moon with his family.Hi Amanda,
I really like the idea of including the child’s own interpretations of space to assess their knowledge as a focus for SSE. A portfolio of reflections would be lovely to look back at in senior classes to see how much they have learnt and they would have fun looking at their misconceptions.
I really like the practical activities based on stars and constellations. It would be great to do some of the activities at night with the children with a clear sky but still the Stellarium Online Star Map could still be used with the children in school. The children could find the school on the Stellarium map with ipads and then go outside to ‘view’ the stars. Even this simple activity would help the younger children appreciate that the stars don’t ‘come out’ at night but are always there, we just can’t see them!
With black sugar paper and white tipex pens they could then draw what they se on the map in relation to the school and their viewpoint. Back in the classroom constellations could be ready for the children to identify and then name on their sheets.
Another practical activity I would love to do with children in my class is the fruit and vegetable scaled solar system. I love the simple visual way it allows children to see the relative sizes of all the planets in comparison to the sun.
Mind Map:https://www.canva.com/design/DAGwue_ehM4/SjvJECd-58toerVpsJ9WOw/edit?utm_content=DAGwue_ehM4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebuttonHi Jane
I like this idea of getting the children to guess which photos are of Earth and which are Mars. The class could be split into teams and they could have a competition. One side of the board could be marked Earth and the other Mars. The children could then guess where the photo belongs. The winners could then all get Mars bars!
I love the creative activities in both Stars. I have some luminous stars at home so I would firstly bring the stars into school and hang them on the ceiling. I would block out all the light in the room as much as possible and get the children to lie on their backs and look a the stars. I would also encourage them to do this at home with their family, maybe in the winter when it gets darker earlier.
I would then ask the children to suggest how we could paint a starry sky and what colours we need to get-black background, white or yellow paint. I would explain that the biggest star of all is the Sun. The children could then use a grater or toothbrush to splash stars onto a black background.
I would then focus on constellations and check for any prior knowledge of names of constellations or if the children noticed how some stars are grouped together-this could also be done with the luminous stars. I would give them the Draw Your Own Constellation Activity which is really fun with the caption I used to be …but now I am…… I would get the children to make up different objects to go into this.
This activity could also be used on a pegboard with pegs or thumbtacks in felt.
I love this idea of tracing the shadows of toy animals. I think younger children would love this activity. You are very lucky to have a school garden and a sun dial all set to go!
Activity Set: The Sun and Shadows
I love the sundial activity with the stones. I think it could be used from Junior Infants right up to Sixth Class. Before setting up the activity and waiting for a sunny day, I would ask the class to guess how people told the time before watches and clocks and phones. I would also get them to discuss why telling the time might be important or who ‘made up’ time!
I would then show the children some videos about sundials and ask them if they ever saw one.
This link to Science Questions: What is a Sundial? is really good because it shows the hemispherical sundial that was found in Egypt in 1500 BCE at the beginning of the video.
After watching that and making sure we had a sunny day I would ask the children in groups to come up with ideas of how we could make our own sundial. They could use simple diagrams to show their ideas. I would then prompt each group to come up with a sundial similar to the stone one in the video.
We could then paint stones and paint the numbers from 9 to 3 on them and mark them out in the yard. The children could also explore how we could make something upright to ‘point’ to the line shadow
Hi Jane,
I really liked your mind map. I especially liked music, drama and art being linked with the other planets and aliens section. 🙂
Hi all,
Next time I have a senior class I would like to try out the measuring absorption activity by getting the mass of the liquid absorbed from each of the materials. I have done absorption before with classes but I never hung the materials so that the liquid could travel up like in the ‘Mighty Materials’ worksheet. Younger children can make a mark on the materials to predict where it will travel to and then see the difference when the activity is over. Senior children can weigh the materials before and after the water has been absorbed. They can calculate this as a percentage of the total weight and then compare each material as an extra maths activity.
