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Hi Jennifer, I love the art activity of the children turning into astronauts! I will be using that this year during space week! Thank you for sharing!
This is a lesson I have done with a senior infant class during space week and the star projector was a huge hit!
I would begin this lesson by reading the story ‘The Hundred Decker Rocket’ by Mike Smith. The children would then go off into groups to start designing their rockets to bring them to space! I will print off some blue print paper and allow them to use our clip boards/hard hats/goggles from out Aistear station. Our theme in Aistear for that month will be Space so they will have some prior knowledge/experience. The children will use their prior knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes to help draw out their plans. We will ask the children to bring in cardboard boxes/other recyclable materials for the month prior to this. The children will use those materials to build their rockets. To make this more challenging each group will have a different ‘task’ to include. For example your rocket must have three circle windows, your rocket must have one square and one triangle window, your rocket must include a pattern somewhere in the design. When every group is ready they will get the chance to present their rocket to the class. I will turn off all the lights and use my star projector.
Hands-on classroom themed activity – Weather – What clothes to wear
I really like the activity set weather/what clothes to wear as I feel it is can be integrated very well across the curriculum. I am planning this lesson for a junior infant class. I would start the lesson by discussing weather and seasons. I will ask the children what type of weather do we have in Ireland. I will give each group a season to work on. They will have to discuss this season and, with help from myself and our support teacher, fill out a very simple and infant friendly mind map. They can draw pictures or write some small words if they can. Each group will share their mind map with the class and after every group has spoken we will ask the class if they have anything they could add to that mind map. Each group will then be asked to dress our class teddy. Using lots of different materials and perhaps even stuff from out junk art station the children will dress our class teddy for the season their group is working on. We can then check if the clothes are suitable for the weather of that season by checking the mind map again to see what weather that season. We can use a watering can to mimic the rain/ flashlight to mimic the sun/ etc to see if their clothes are suitable. We will fill in a weather chart all week and discuss on Friday which clothes would have suited teddy best this week. This lesson can be linked with SESE/Gaeilge/Aistear/Art.
I also love the idea of using a peg board! My junior infant classes always love the peg boards for our fine motor skill stations so this is a great idea to use them as part of a lesson!
Activity Set – Stars
I would begin this lesson by introducing the children to the story ‘How to catch a star’ Oliver Jeffers as we sit in a circle. We would discuss the title, front cover and back cover. I would then ask the children what they think the story is about. As I open the book a letter falls out. A letter from the little boy in the story asking them for help to catch a star. I will read the letter and ask the children to go to their groups and come up with a plan – how are we going to help this boy catch a star? Each group will have a worksheet where they can draw out their plans. Some options for an add on are allowing the children to make their rocket/star catcher machine/ etc using junk art materials or using the different type of building blocks we have in class. After each group have presented their ideas we will read the book and see how the little boy tried to catch a star. At the end we will discuss if any of their ideas would have worked or if we can actually catch a star at all.
I love the idea of each group reporting back to their classmates about their planet! This gives all groups the chance to learn some facts about other planets too!
The activity set I would chose is ‘The Sun and the Shadows’. I am planning this for a junior infant class. Children are always so fascinated by shadows so I feel this will be a very engaging activity. I would use this as a follow-on from the night/day lesson.
Get the children to sit in a circle. Ask them to remind you of our night/day lesson. Some prompting questions to help – What happens during the day?/ Where does the sun go at night?/ Why do we need to use lights at home at night but not during the day?
I would then ask the children if they know what a shadow is?/ How do we get shadows?/ Can you give me an example?/ What causes a shadow?
I have a bucket of large toy animals and I will ask the children to pick one.
We will go out side and using chalk I will get the children to place their toy down and trace the shadow of their animal with the chalk. We will leave the animal where it is and go back inside.
In the afternoon we will go back outside and I will ask the children if they notice anything?/ Why did the shadow move?/ What caused the shadow to move?
I will explain to the children that the sun moving caused our animal shadows to move. If we don’t have a sunny day that week I will do the same activity in doors using a flashlight as the sun and black paper with white chalk to show our shadows.Hi Katie-Jo,
I love the idea of this lesson and I will definitely be using the idea this year with my Naíonáin Bheaga class! They love our class teidí so this will be a really engaging lesson!
Inquiry based activity for Junior/Senior infants.
I would introduce the lesson by having the children come in from yard to find teachers bottle of water knocked over and a puddle of water left in the middle of the classroom. I would then ask the children how are we going to clean this water up? In their groups they will come up with different materials we can use from around the classroom. Each group will then choose 4 different materials and using a worksheet will list them from 1-4 with 1 being the material they think will clean up the water best. Each group will chose one leader to try out a different material. After all materials are used the children can draw a picture of the material that worked best on the bottom of the worksheet to reflect on the experiment. As a follow up, a few days later I will do the same water bottle incident to see if the children will remember which material worked best last time to clean up the water.
Hi everyone,
My name is Dayna and I will be teaching Junior Infants this year for the fourth time after a break last year when I went to second. I really enjoyed teaching an older class this year and we got to do a lot of very fun and interesting SESE lessons/projects!
My favourite space fact that a student shared with me this year is that you can fit one million earths inside the sun! I was as shocked as the rest of the class when I heard it. It really helped the children understand just how large the sun is and so they began to ask questions such as how much space is there in space? I am looking forward to this course and I hope I learn a lot that I can bring to my junior infant class in September and also go back to my 2nd class from this year with some answers to the their questions!
