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ASSIGNMENT
Choose one of the activities or activity sets outlined in this module – How would you use the activity in your classroom? or consolidate your experiences and action plans in the course by creating a class plan to engage with Space Week. Post a reflective piece (150 words min) to the forum as a reply to this post. You may include digital records of the activities.Space Week 2024. The Space week website is filled with great ideas and planning which makes it very accessible for teachers. It would be nice to have different activities on each day of Space Week. Twinkl and Teachers Pay Teachers also have some useful supporting resources too.
I would firstly have a Space Fact per day for the week and display this daily on the classroom door. As mentioned I work in a hospital school so I would also have print outs of the daily space facts for the children to share with parents and staff when they return to their bedroom.
The children also love making a weekly newsletter that we hand out to staff and children and patients so we can create the newsletter the week before and display it outside the classroom. The children can update the newsletter as the week goes on and make one the following week.
I would chose one experiment per day as well. In our setting it’s nice to have activities that are easily differentiated as we have many age groups and sometimes don’t know which pupils will be in that day. So having options for all abilities is great.
We have mini stem kits from Digi wiz that are so popular in our school currently so sending the kids back with a stem kit per day would be nice too.
There are so many fantastic online resources to explore too. It would interesting to explore these sites throughout the week and also allow the children to explore the sites on the ipads in the classroom too.
There’s lots of curricular integration options too. Using art to create martians, space crafts and planets. I play music during art lessons so it would be nice to incorporate some the new solar systems songs discussed on this course and add it to my usual art playlist.
I really like this activity of sending postcards to the Martians, I think this would be a big hit in my school setting!
ASSIGNMENT
Choose one of the activities or activity sets outlined in this module:
Online resources and tools
How would you use the activity in your classroom? Or What further steps might you take towards a STEM focused SSE?
Post a reflective piece (150 words min) to the forum as a reply to this post. You may include digital records of the activities.
Also, please respond to one other participant’s post.In my school setting we use a lot of online resources and tools, especially as a majority of our lessons are beside. It’s great to have a toolkit on the ipad that can be easily transported. I use Mystery Science https://mysteryscience.com/ and SFI Declan Holmes youtube channel regularly.
I had not heard of Marvin and Milo before this course. I especially like that a lot of their activities are 15 minutes (this is a perfect amount of time for our students who can often get quite fatigued in hospital/school).
I like how visually appealing the Marvin and Milo comic strips are too, they are bright, engaging and the visual pictures of the characters are very appealing.
It would be nice to create grab and go type activity boxes for SSE. In the past we created grab and go Primary Science bags which were so handy and useful. It would nice to re create these boxes and to laminate the Marvin and Milo comic strip along with the instructions for the teacher or in a multiclass setting we could have the older child reading the instructions and collaboratively working with the younger child.
You could extend the lesson by having the children creating their own comin strip of their finding/ results using Canva or other comic strip generator websitesThat’s a great idea to ask the parents/children to see if they have items at home to aid the theme. I’m sure the children would enjoy bringing things from home and sharing them with their friends. Good idea
ASSIGNMENT
Choose one of the activities or activity sets outlined in this module:
Online resources and tools
How would you use the activity in your classroom? Or What further steps might you take towards a STEM focused SSE?
Post a reflective piece (150 words min) to the forum as a reply to this post. You may include digital records of the activities.
Also, please respond to one other participant’s post.In my school setting we use a lot of online resources and tools, especially as a majority of our lessons are beside. It’s great to have a toolkit on the ipad that can be easily transported. I use Mystery Science https://mysteryscience.com/ and SFI Declan Holmes youtube channel regularly.
I had not heard of Marvin and Milo before this course. I especially like that a lot of their activities are 15 minutes (this is a perfect amount of time for our students who can often get quite fatigued in hospital/school).
I like how visually appealing the Marvin and Milo comic strips are too, they are bright, engaging and the visual pictures of the characters are very appealing.
It would be nice to create grab and go type activity boxes for SSE. In the past we created grab and go Primary Science bags which were so handy and useful. It would nice to re create these boxes and to laminate the Marvin and Milo comic strip along with the instructions for the teacher or in a multiclass setting we could have the older child reading the instructions and collaboratively working with the younger child.
You could extend the lesson by having the children creating their own comin strip of their finding/ results using Canva or other comic strip generator websitesVirtual stargazing using Stellarium is a brilliant idea. I hadn’t heard of it before this course. I look forward to exploring it this year.
Activity Set: Stars
Activity Set: Space and Aliens
How would you use the activity in your classroom? Post a reflective piece (150 words min) to the forum as a reply to this post. You may include digital records of the activities.I would chose Activity set: Space and Aliens. I would use the space Week Mars Activity. I would begin the lesson with a KWL chart or white boards and get the child/children to brainstorm their questions or prior knowledge about Martians.
There some nice Sesame street clips of the blue and red Martians that could be used as a stimulus or discussion for the children.
In our school clayotics is such a big hit with the students and it’s nice that it dries hard too. The children could brainstorm/draw their Martian on paper and label the parts etc. Then they could construct using Clayotics in a group or individually.
It’s also nice for the children to photograph their creations on the ipad using a backdrop. The child could draw their own Mars on a folded A4 sheet of paper or print one pictures and stick them onto the backing paper. Then they can photograph their creations for their school scrapbook/learning record.
I agree that using pegboards is a great activity. I’m sure Twinkl or TPT would have some constellations activity cards too if some children wanted a stimulus.
Activity Set: The Planets
How would you use the activity in your classroom? Post a reflective piece to the forum (150 words min) as a reply to this post. You may include digital records of the activities.
The Planets and the Solar System is part of our thematic planning for November. So I’m always looking for new lesson ideas and activities. The lessons. The ESERO and UNAWE lesson plans are helpful and a good reference point.
I usually use the Solar system song to begin my lesson but it’s great to have some alternatives to use mentioned in Module 2.
Planet fact file booklet- The children really enjoy learning all the fun facts about the planets and creating fact files.
There are some nice downloadable Planet fact files and flip books that the children can work on. e.g. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Solar-System-Mini-Book-Portrait-2539836?st=ce408fafb14a42891474cdd504e6957e
The idea of creating planet models using playdough, modroc or Clayotics is great for the children to work collaboratively in a group or on their own.
The children also enjoy colouring the planets using paint sticks and then cutting and sticking them to make mobiles using paper plates or hangers too.
That’s a good idea to show the first landing of the moon clip as it’s interesting and would appeal to all class groups. Thanks for the reminder!
As a reply to this post, introduce yourself on the forum and share your favourite space fact. Then add a reflection (150 words min) on how you would use one inquiry-based activity in your classroom
Dia Daoibh, My name is Deirdre and I’m based in hospital school so I have all age groups and abilities 🙂
A space fun fact I think is interesting is that the sunset on Mars appears blue!
In our school setting our lessons often depend on how our pupils are feeling on that particular day, I find Chris Hadfield’s youtube videos about space a brilliant resource to use. His videos are full of facts and fun, such as ‘How do you brush your teeth in space?’ The children really enjoy watching these short videos. They are short and sweet but that is perfect in our school setting and really appeals to the pupils. Mystery Science is another of my Go to websites for Science, they have fantastic space videos and once again are short, sweet but very informative. These videos can offer great discussion opportunities for the children and we can add to our classroom KWL charts.
