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I think the Marvin and Milo cartoons are a fun way to introduce ideas of how to make or launch rockets. The children can brainstorm ways to launch their rocket and investigate different materials and ways to make their rockets suitable for flight. Once the children have predicted and posed their starter question they can begin to carry out their own investigation.
The Rocket Mouse is one of my favourite experiments to show a rocket launching. The children in my previous classes have found this idea engaging and a lot of fun. We will use items from our Friday Box like an empty milk bottle. You will need sellotape and we will use numerous items to make our rocket colourful such as paint, glitter and stickers. The Rocket Mouse template is used, cut and taped together. We can stick eyes on the tip of the mouse and create whiskers with permanent marker. We can add paper ears too. Once the mouse is ready for liftoff the children can squeeze the bottle.
In groups the children can ask each other questions such as why did the mouse launch into the air, how did this happen and what could make the mouse go higher or lower in the air.
I will allow the children to pick various sizes of plastic bottles from our Friday Box to see if there are any differences in their experiments. We will join together again and discuss did anything different happen using a different size container and why they think that happened.
We will discuss the pressure you are putting on each bottle size when you squeeze it. Are you putting the same amount of pressure on each sized bottle etc. The children will record their findings and display it to the class.
I love the idea of Rocket Mouse. Such a fun idea with lots of thinking, predicting and decision making behind it. Our Friday Box would definitely come in handy here to collect the bottles from home and get the children involved in the process. Also to support their peers who were not in school that day and to suggest ideas of various way to launch the rocket.
Weather is a great topic to explore in the classroom. I would begin by showing the children various flashcards of different weather to introduce the topic of Weather. I would show them the song
We would pick one aspect of weather such as focusing on looking at clouds. We would explore how to make clouds in a jar. We discuss how there are many water droplets inside clouds and how they move around and bump into each other. These droplets get bigger and bigger until the cloud cannot hold them anymore which forms rain. I would split the class into groups for this experiment. Each group would have a glass filled with water. They would add layers of shaving foam to the top. I would then invite the children to use droppers to drop food colouring into the clouds. The children can then watch the food colouring slip through the shaving foam/clouds into the glass of water.
The Friday Box is a super idea. I will definitely use this this year. A great way to get the children involved in their learning journey.
The area I would like to cover are Stars in the classroom. I love learning more about this topic but also supporting the children’s learning with regards to this topic. I have found that my students in the past loved extending their knowledge of Stars.
I will start the lesson by playing the familiar song ‘Twinkl Twinkle Little Star’. We will sing the song and use actions. We will then discuss what the children think and know about stars. We will share various facts about stars such as what stars look like, what colours they are, constellations and the sun being a star.
I love looking at the stars in the sky at night myself and find it magical so I love doing this activity with the children. We will use glow in the dark paint. The children can paint a night sky on black paper or dark paper. We have a sensory tent that is black. Once their pictures are dry we will look at their paintings in the dark sensory tent. I will give each of the children a cut out of a big star. They will paint them in various glow in the dark colours so they have rainbow stars. They can then stick their star on their night sky picture. We will then view all of our starry night pictures in the sensory tent in groups. The children love this idea and enjoy creating their own sky full of rainbow stars.
I love this idea of the marbles in the container and creating a discussion using this visual aid. I will definitely use this idea this September in my lesson as I know the children will be engaged in this fun activity.
I would introduce the activity set regarding the Planets to the children by playing the ‘Planets’ song first. This would allow the children to gather their previous thoughts on planets but also for them to gain new ideas and facts about the planets from the song. Sometimes we add actions to our songs we learn too. We would then discuss their ideas and any questions they want to explore.
There a numerous activities I have undertaken with my class before while we we learning about the planets. We set up an Aistear area where we created a Space Station using large cardboard boxes, paint, scissors and sellotape to decorate and make our station. The children build rockets from various junk art and they role played various scenarios as they visited the space. I have included sensory bins in this area too where the children can explore items in a container that represent the asteroids and rocks you may find on the moon. These would be represented by different objects such as rice, beans, cotton wool and other arts and craft supplies.
Another activity I have used is creating the solar system mobile using painted styrofoam balls and hanging them from a hanger. The children can label the balls with the names of the different planets. This was a fun way to remember the names as the children really enjoyed decorating and painting the balls and displaying them to their peers in the class.
I agree with Emma. I think the Planets Song is a great way to gain the children’s attention at the beginning of the lesson. I have found songs are a fun way to introduce a topic and then you can follow on with a discussion about the children’s previous knowledge of the planets.
Hi my name is Rohana. I have been teaching Senior Infants the last three year and I will have them again in September. A fun fact that I’ve shared with my class before is that shooting stars are not actually stars. They are small pieces of rock or dust from the space that burn up in the Earths atmosphere. These then make a a steak of light which looks like a shooting star.
The children have loved the experiments on Forces as an inquiry-based activity that we have done during the school year. First of all we begin by looking and discussing that a push and a pull are both forces. We write different things on the board that we can push and pull that can be found at home, in the park, playground etc.
We looked at an experiment to push a 7up bottle and a ball. We called this bottle bowling. Here the children experiment pushing a ball with different forces, with a hard push or a gentle push to knock over 7up bottles. We talked about what kind of push made the ball move faster. From this we can also talk about when the ball and the bottle collide with each other they can change the motion.
I have used the storybook “Welcome to Alien School” with infants before. I would begin by asking the children to predict what they think the story is about. When we have finished the story we will discuss the various activities that took place and what were their favourite and also what activities they think should be involved in Alien School. We brainstormed the things that were similar and different that took place in Alien School and our school. As a class we would discuss the uniform and the rules that may be included in Alien School along with what the school would look like. The class would be split up into groups and they would role play the different activities that would take place in their ideal Alien Schools.
Theis can be integrated with Visual Arts where the children create their own Aliens by designing what they would look like and describe their characters to the class in the Artist’s Chair.
I have linked this topic with music before where the children learn the song/poem “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom”. The children would familiarise themselves with the rhyming words in the song and we would create our own actions to go with the song to help the children to remember the lyrics.
There are a lot of great ideas here Sinéad. These will definitely develop the children’s knowledge of Space in a fun and engaging way.
I have used a number of hands-on classroom activities in the last few years with Infants regarding weather and the different clothes you would wear for various conditions.
· Geography/ Science: We began the topic by discussing different types of weather. Following this, I showed the children clips of weather forecasts. We brainstormed and highlighted different words the weather forecaster had used to describe the weather on the whiteboard. I split the group into groups and they created their own weather forecasts for the class and acted them out. We discussed our favourite weather and what we would wear for this type of weather.
· Science: Another activity I used before was a cutting activity where the children had to match the correct clothes to the correct picture of a certain type of weather. We discussed as a class why they chose this and what the words we can use to describe the weather in question.
· Aistear: The children loved using the rain-themed sensory table in Aistear. The children love playing with water. I put plastic animals and figurines into the water with strainers and colander’s. The children used the strainers to make rain.
· Visual Arts: The children loved making their own kites using paper plates. With support the children cut the centre of the paper plate out. They designed their own paper plate with paint. Once it was dry they stuck a number of colourful ribbons on one side of the paper plate with sellotape. We then stuck a long dowel to the end of the paper plate with masking tape. The children loved bringing these out to the school yard to see their kite ribbons blowing in the wind as they ran around the playground.
This is a brilliant idea Siobhan. I will do this in September. Id say the parents would love to get rid of bits that they don’t use around the house which we can use at various stations.
I would use the activity of Stars and this lesson would be aimed at infant level.
Subject: Visual Arts/Literacy/SPHE
Activity topic: Stars
I would begin the lesson with reciting the song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with the children. We would go through the words and we would discuss what the song is about.
We will create Paper Plate Star mobiles. The resources we will need are:
· Paper plates
· Coloured string
· Scissors
· Paint, paintbrushes
· Glue
· Star templates
· Coloured markers
The children will begin by decorating the star templates and cutting them out. The children will colour the stars and they can put a different emotion on the face of each star. We can link this are to SPHE also where we can teach the children how to recognise facial expressions and what emotions mean. Once they have done this, they can cut out their stars. They will then paint the paper plates blue, purple and black swirls to be used as the galaxy. When the paper plates are dry the children can cut the plates out in a spiral design. I will help the children to draw the spiral design with a marker so they can follow it when they are cutting. We will make a hole in the top of the spiral plate and put a piece of string through it. The children can tie a knot at the end of it. I will support them with this step too. The children can then hang the mobile in their bedroom.
