[Carol anne Savery]

I love the integration of music and literacy in your lesson. So important to have a thematic approach in infants.

[Carol anne Savery]

Lesson on rockets for Junior Infants

Engage:
Step 1: Story – Roaring rockets by Tony Mitton . Discuss the story and rockets and how rockets launch into space.
Step 2: Watch a brief clip of a rocket launch such as https://youtu.be/Lti6a_YYQl0?si=sIn1-Vsuh3qq1h8z
Step 2: Explore a selection of rockets provided by the teacher – allow the children to explore each rocket by moving in groups to each station which will have a different rocket.
Step 3: Create their own rocket mice rocket using paper , colours , milk bottles and sellotape. ( I would use all the same sized bottles for this step)

Investigate:
Starter question: How could we make the mice rockets go further?
The children would be encouraged to make a prediction based on this.
They would then use different sized bottles to explore pressure .
Think , pair , share activity based on ideas on how the rockets work.
Taking the next step
Looking again at the selection of rockets from the beginning of the lesson – exploring what other ways we could make a rocket fly.
Explore the Marvin and Milo resource about balloon rockets .
Make the balloon rocket from Marvin and Milo.
Further investigation based on the balloon rocket.

[Carol anne Savery]

I like the way you ask for feedback from the pupils. Pupil voice is so important and oftentimes it can be last thing that we consider with such overload in the system.

[Carol anne Savery]

The lesson I would use in my classroom would be the ‘What clothes to wear’ lesson.
I would introduce the lesson with the story ‘ four seasons in one day’
We would discuss how the various seasons .
Then I would distribute the colouring pictures depicting different seasons.
Children would be encouraged to discuss the various seasons whilst colouring.
After colouring we would compare the pictures and explore the different types of clothing that is being worn in each picture.
Then we would sit in a circle and use our class dressing up box which has lots of different clothes suitable for the various seasons.
I would place an open suitcase beside the clothes.
I would tell a story of a little girl who is going on holiday in the spring – what kinds of clothes should she pack?
I would repeat this for Summer, Autumn and Winter.
I would initate questioning as to why we wear warm clothes in the summer and lighter clothes in the winter.
As a conclusion to the lesson I would divide the class into four groups and give each of them a piece of paper with one season written on it . Each group then has to select clothes suitable for the season from the dressing up box and the other groups must guess which season they are dressing for.

[Carol anne Savery]

I forgot about aliens love underpants, such a fantastic book for infants.

[Carol anne Savery]

Topic : Space and Aliens
(I would do this lesson after extensive learning about the planets)
Engage:
I would start the lesson by singing the ‘family of the sun’ song to recall prior learning about the planets.
Then I would ask the children to think about what kinds of beings might live on various planets- which planets are more likely to have aliens ? why?
I would then read the story ‘ Welcome to Alien school’ by Caryl Hart and Ed Davis
We would discuss what the aliens in the story looked like. What special features did they have? How might these features help them to live in space?

Investigation:
Then I pose the question – what would an alien look like?
I would ask the children to draw an alien and think , pair, share on why they gave their aliens particular features.
The children would then be encouraged to model their alien using morla and bits from the miscellaneous arts and crafts box ( pipe cleaners, buttons, sticks , googly eyes etc.)

Take the next step:
Discuss how the features would allow the alien to live on various planets.
Ask the children to role play as their alien and describe the planet that they live on.

[Carol anne Savery]

That sounds like fantastic fun . I really like activities where children can get active and move about. Did you find that infants found it hard to focus ?

[Carol anne Savery]

How I would teach about day and night and how the earth rotates in my classroom.

Introduction:

we would sing the ‘Wakey , wakey song’ – this is a song that the children are familiar with already .

Step 1:

We would discuss day and night using pictures – what is the difference between the pictures of the day time and night time.

Step 2:

In small groups the children would be encouraged to sort sets of day and night pictures into the correct groups. Groups report back and give their reasons for classifying the pictures.

Step 3:

In a darkened room using a lamp(to represent the sun) and a globe I would show how the sun shines on the earth. I would stick two lego figures to the globe to represent people living on opposite side of the globe. We would discuss how the light shines on the globe as it rotates and how each lego figure goes from day to night and back to day again.

Step 4:

With our bodies we would show how the earth rotates away from the sun by putting a lego man on the palm of our outstretched hands with playdough,

Conclusion:

We would sing the day and night song

 

[Carol anne Savery]

This is a great idea! I hadn’t heard of that one before. Infants would love it.

[Carol anne Savery]

Class : Junior Infants

Engage:

The Trigger: Tell the children I am going to show them a magic trick. Using a ‘boat’ constructed from  paper with a paperclip attached to the bottom on a piece of paper and a magnet on the bottom. Use the magnet to move the boat .

Wondering : Think/ pair /share  on how the boat moved.

Exploring : In groups children use magnets to move boats

Investigate:

Starter question: What other materials do magnets attract?

Predicting: Looking at the materials provided – plastic bottle tops, card, coins, metal dinky cars, plastic topper, pencils , scissors.

Conducting the investigation: In small groups (each with set of magnets and materials) take one material at a time and see if it will stick to the magnet.

Sharing : using two large signs on the ground for each group ask the children to sort the materials into those that magnets will attract and those they do not.

Taking the next step:

Applying Learning:

What other materials could we use to attach to the bottom of the boats to make them move?

Children attach other metallic objects to the ‘boats’ to make them move when the magnet is under the paper.

Teacher reflection

How did this activity go?

What improvements could I make?

Were the learning objectives actualised?

 

[Carol anne Savery]

Hi ,

I’m Carol Anne and I’m in S.E.N this year but I will have infants next year.

My favourite space fact is that Venus is the hottest planet although Mercury is closest to the sun.

 

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