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📖 Poems
• Michael D. Higgins – Stardust (a reflection on our cosmic origins).
• W.B. Yeats – He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven (“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths…”) – gentle and child-friendly.
• Emily Dickinson – The Moon was but a Chin of Gold (playful poem about the moon).
• Carl Sandburg – Stars (short and accessible, captures awe).
• Sara Teasdale – Stars (lyrical, simple, about beauty of night sky).
🎵 Songs
• “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” (traditional, familiar).
• “Catch a Falling Star” – Perry Como (gentle, uplifting).
• “Across the Universe” – The Beatles (beautiful imagery, but you can just use excerpts).
• “A Sky Full of Stars” – Coldplay (modern, upbeat).
• “Somewhere Out There” – from An American Tail (hopeful night-sky theme).
• Irish Traditional Airs – e.g. Mo Ghile Mear or Buachaill Ón Éirne often reference stars and the heavens.
🎨 Visual Art & Inspiration
• Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night (iconic swirling night sky).
• Georgia O’Keeffe – Starlight Night (1917) – soft abstraction of the night.
• Paul Henry (Irish artist) – his Connemara landscapes often include twilight/dusk skies.
• Constellation Art – Ancient Greek star myths depicted in art (Orion, Pegasus).
• Indigenous Art – Aboriginal Australian star maps & “Emu in the Sky” stories.Globe at night sounds like a brilliant resource, I look forward to checking it out this coming year!
This topic links hugely with our Green school planning. Incorporating the needs of nocturnal species would begin with exploring nocturnal life. I have 3rd class this year and so my school planning will be based around this year group. I would introduce the topic using a short video ( the links from this module are fantastic!) that show Irish nocturnal animals; bats, owls hunting, moths around light etc.. I would use prompt questions such as ‘ What do these animals have in common? Why do they come out at night?
As a whole class we would then brainstorm: “What could we do in our homes, schools, or towns to help nocturnal animals?” We would gather ideas such as turn off unnecessary lights, use motion sensors instead of always-on lights, Shield lights so they point downwards, Support local dark-sky parks (e.g. Kerry, Mayo). This could be linked with our biodiversity week in school and students could be asked to create posters titled “Save the Night – Protect Our Wildlife’ or write a short story/poem about “A Night in the Life of a Bat/Owl.”Ducksters looks like a fantastic resource, I’ve never seen it before but will definitely look into it for this coming year. Thanks for sharing!
1. Create an observing plan for autumn that shows which planets are visible in the evening sky.
This plan will begin by showing my class a short animation or time-lapse of the night sky with planets moving, using Stellarium, or NASA;s ‘Sky Tonight’ map to help. Prompt questions to use would be ‘Do you think we can see all the planets every night?’ or “Have you ever seen a bright ‘star’ that didn’t twinkle?”
As I have 3rd this year, I would keep things simple at first and focus on two planets. In Autumn this year, Saturn should be visible most Autumn evenings and Jupiter returns in November. The observation plan will be a whole class activity with a large calendar on the wall for September to November. We will colour code the planets and add a simple compass rose (E, S, W, N) so they know where to look. This classroom wall chart will track what has been spotted over the months. I will encourage students to look at the evening sky as part of homework and document their finding either on their own chart or as photos to be uploaded onto their seesaw accounts.
