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I definitely agree that these topics would lend themselves to thematic planning across the curriculum. As well as saving time, it allows pupils to engage fully with all aspects and, in my experience, pupils own prior related knowledge can lead to the exploration of avenues that were not planned but are very beneficial
Art
Several Circles – Wassily Kandinsky
The Starry Night – Vincent van Gogh
Night in the City – Georgia O’Keeffe
Full Moon – Paul Klee
Consider how many Songs / Poems /Art can you think of to connect us with the Night Sky? For example: Look up President Michael D Higgins’ “Stardust”
Songs
The Stars are Ours – The Coronas
Star Star – The Frames
Twinkle Twinkle
Sky Full of Stars – ColdplayPoems
Hey Diddle Diddle
The Moon – Robert Louis Stevensen
The Moon – Eliza Lee Follen
Mr. MoonBooks
The Darkest Dark – Chris Hadfield
How to Catch a Star – Oliver Jeffers
Owl Babies – Martin Waddell
Lights Out! – Marsha Diane ArnoldI love the hook of beginning with a “local mystery”. I think it would really engage pupils of all ages and pique their interest in the activity. Providing them with the opportunity and tools to investigate would be a be a very practical and hands on lesson!
How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity
I’d start by taking the class outside into the woodland area near the school during the day. I would encourage pupils to look for and count living things like different plants, mini beasts, birds etc, using a simple tally sheet. This would hopefully give them a real feel for what biodiversity means and show the wide range of species we have in our school environment.
Next, we would have a discussion the animals that might live in our school environment and how they behave at night versus during the day. We’d look at pictures of our school area at night and talk about which spots are brightly lit and which are dark and where we think the animals prefer.
To create a home/school link and to take advantage of the various different types of areas where pupils live, I would encourage pupils to take a dusk walk with their parents and take note of well-lit versus dark areas and the animals/insects they see in both.
Finally, the children would draw or write about what they found, and suggest one simple idea to help nocturnal animals who live near either the school or their home.
Hi Olivia,
I really like how you would tailor this specifically for your class background by relating to their family members who are shift workers. I think this would lead to high pupil engagement in the topic.
Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
I work in a school in West Dublin and while it is an urban area, we are lucky to have direct access to both woodland and river habitats. I think these would be a great starting point to engage the pupils, particularly in terms of how the light pollution affects the animals that live there.
I would show the pupils the ‘What is Light Pollution’ clip on Youtube. We would follow this up by an audit of the lights around our school, e.g. the security lights and the hurling wall. I would also show the pupils a picture of what the school looks like at night as many of them would never have seen it in the dark. I would elicit suggestions from the pupils as to how we could improve the levels of light pollution in our school environment.
I agree Sean, the ESERO activity to show pupils the different phases of the moon is very hands on, and would be suitable for all class groups. It can be a very abstract topic, so a practical activity would be very beneficial.
Create an observing plan for autumn that shows which planets are visible in the evening sky
I never realised there were so many fantastic resources for observing the night sky. Unlike lessons on day, the sun and shadows etc, there are only certain days the moon is still visible in the morning, which usually leads to much excitement from pupils!
I would extend the children’s learning beyond the classroom by involving them in a simple autumn sky-watching activity with their families. Since Venus is bright and easy to spot shortly after sunset, I would introduce this as our starting point, as it doesn’t require much equipment and I think pupils would enjoy searching for it with a parent/guardian at home. I would send home a “Spot the Bright Star” sheet, encouraging children to look up with a grown-up one evening, draw what they notice, and bring their picture back to share during circle time. As the year moves on, we would return to the activity as new planets become visible in the sky and compare the changes.
Back in the classroom, we could use a resource like Stellarium to compare what the children had observed.
I think this is a great idea for Naíonáin Bheaga! Chatting about where the sun is at different types of the day could be an informal lesson while the pupils are lining up to come in in morning, and after little and big break each day. Pupils could record their findings in their scrapbooks or assessment folders.
ESERO 30 Day and Night Around the World
I love the idea of using animals to introduce the idea of day and night as I teach in the junior end of the school and animals are always a popular theme. As I teach in Senior infants, I would give pictures of some common nocturnal and diurnal animals and ask children to divide them into two groups. We would discuss as a whole class how the groups decided to divide them. I would also do the activity myself so if none of the groups had divided them into nocturnal/diurnal we could discuss why I had grouped them in that way. The ESERO 30 lesson plan has very good examples of prompt questions which would help me lead the discussion. Allowing pupils to compare the two groups of animals would highlight the adaptations of the nocturnal animals.
I think Paxi’s Day and Night and the seasons is a another great resource as it explains the concepts of day and night in a very child friendly way.
Finally, as a closure/plenary for the lesson, the Day and Night song would consolidate their learning. This would be an introductory lessons for pupils and we would follow up by exploring why day/night and the seasons are different in countries around the world.