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Aideen,
this would link really nicely to the history and design of landing craft for the Moon.
The engineers had to
A landing gear for the lunar surface had to be designed for varying landing conditions, such as protuberances, depressions, small craters, slopes, and soil-bearing strength. To achieve the necessary stability, the landing gear had to be able to absorb a diversity of impact loads. Houston and Bethpage met this challenge by using crushable honeycomb material in the struts, so the gear would compress on impact. A principal advantage of honeycomb shock absorbers was their simplicity. Since they had to work only once, the more common hydraulic shock absorbers and their complexities could be avoided. Subsequently, crushable honeycomb was also applied to the large saucerlike foot pads to improve stability further for landing
Source: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-4205/ch6-4.html
Aideen,
Your maths connections are great. This would really promote maths talk and is one of those “low threshold- high ceiling’ activities. See the links to the book shared to other teachers.
Thanks for sharing that book link,
Chloe,
this gentle activity about the planets accesses a range of Infants: Energy and forces >Light
- identify and name different colours
- sort objects into sets according to colour
- observe colours in the local environment at school, in the home, in the street, in animal and plant life
- explore dark and bright colours and become aware of different shades of colour
Studies have also shown gender difference in colour naming (see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258831976_Gender_differences_in_colour_naming), so it would be interesting to see if your class can create new colour names : Mars Red or Saturn Yellow
Nora,
thanks for sharing one of the newer revised Curious Minds resources that has been built on the foundation of the Framework for Inquiry.
As you have shown, some of the resources are available in Irish, and more are being shared all the time.
Jessica,
I think using 2D shapes to make aliens combines maths and the story in a great way. A quick search found some extra resources to support the Aliens who love underpants, including a 2 page version of the story without all the illustrations:
and a page by page version: https://www.hannahmore.org.uk/images/Year_3_home_learning/Term_6/Week_5/Aliens_in_Underpants_save_the_world_compressed.pdf
and there is a pants template here: https://www.teachingideas.co.uk/books/aliens-love-underpants/
Jessica,
what a great collection of activities that build on your class’s interests. Looking at the Earth in relation to the “Goldilocks Zone” could lead to other science activities related to heat (recognise the difference between hot and
cold in terms of weather…) The first part of this video would suit!https://youtu.be/-8cp-1nVUHU?si=PdDCx0FiNz90kvXx
You will also be accessing: Environmental awareness and care>Caring for my locality.
- observe, discuss and appreciate the attributes of the local environment
Mark,
given that this is a cross curricular course, but sponsored by Science Foundation Ireland, here are some science suggestions that might connect to your outline:
How to say hello, Alien names and colours in their alien’s language. – Use Sound > identify and differentiate between high and low sounds, loud and soft sounds
Make aliens using different materials and fabrics – and describe the materials (describe and compare materials, noting the differences in the colour, shape and texture) and as an extension activity explain why those materials were used in terms of their properties [… the alien’s head is shiny, so I am using sweet wrappers that are shiny etc]
Plus, by sorting the aliens by colour / number of eyes etc they can:
Living Things / Plant and Animals • sort and group living things into sets
Energy and Forces / Light
- identify and name different colours
- sort objects into sets according to colour
Sam,
I do like your fizzy rocket fuel ideas. Even if children are uncertain what will happen when two materials mix, they can incorporate their understanding from what they observe and try again. Having fizzes as the criteria means that fair testing can be considered. Once they find the perfect pair, they can explore the quantities needed.
Catherine,
The cratering activity is such an open activity. I’d suggest providing a range of items to drop, including irregular shapes. This will let the children test if round craters only come from round objects.
The Curious Minds activity outline: https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/meteorites_activity.pdf
suggest this for 1st class and up and proposed just spherical objects.
We do this with children in workshops, and find that they need a certain initial ‘play’ with the materials to get a sense of what can be discovered with this set up. Once they have that familiarity they can carry out an extended inquiry into the factors that interest them. Very often fair testing gets ‘thrown out the window’ as they drop different objects from different heights!
Michelle,
by starting with features of planets you have a natural connection to science when it comes to designing your aliens.
Do you have a suggested video about the planets that you might use? This NASA site has images (imagined but based on our science understanding) of planets beyond our solar system:
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/exoplanet-travel-bureau/?intent=021
We have created aliens from foil for years, using a format similar to this:
https://www.instructables.com/Tinfoil-Animal/
We review the instructions together, have the children plan ‘how many leg, how many arms, how many heads…’ so that they then work out to make 1 less cut than the number of limbs.
Lorraine,
your space theme looks fun, and you can always hold the Shadows day for an actual sunny day.
If you carry this out during Space Week, this would be in early October. At your school do infants finish before 2pm? so would you ask them to try lookin for their shadows at home?
If you want to create this as an event for Space Week, you can add it at
If you want to carry it out during Science Week, that is in early November.
Niamh,
what a lovely way to include aliens into design and make for Science and for Arts.
You can connect to properties of materials, using some of the language that is described in this curious minds resource:
To extend the science connection you might ask the children to sort the aliens into families, and explain why they made those choices in terms of the conditions that the aliens might live in.
So aliens with 7 eyes might live on a dark planet, so need more eyes to see!
Emer,
thanks for sharing your recommendatins of https://www.bytello.com/home
and Chatterpix. I have just downloaded Chatterpix and it is simple and fun. Would you have talking shadows?
I agree that with infants, ‘shadows and how they are made’ would be sufficient. The children could revisit this when they are older to connect to the seasonal and daily changes in the Sun’s position and how that affects the length of the shadows.
Hi Catherine,
This is the lava lamp link (https://spark.iop.org/lava-lamp), it is suggested for 11+, but I agree that it can be used by younger children as it is very similar to Dancing Raisins from Curious Minds:
https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/dancing_raisins.pdf
I think there could be really interesting discussions about the behaviour of the peanuts vs the raisins, do they both rise? which one is faster? is the speed related to the number of bubbles? size of bubbles etc.
From these observations (which could be in the ‘explore’ part of the inquiry framework) children can then ‘go deeper’ with a slightly different set up to verify their understanding.
