[Edel Gilmer]

Planning for Space Week in Senior Infants through Aistear:

Monday: Plan the playcentres on the first day, 4 play-centres from Tuesday-Friday.

Read the story: ‘aliens love underpants’ by Claire Freedman.
discuss what children know about space:
the sun, moon, planets, stars, astronauts, space station…
Record on chart/interactive board

1. The Sun: Show how it’s daytime in one part of the world and night time in another using a torch/light on a globe, rotate the globe to show how this changes. Children mimic the rotation of the earth through movement. Finish the lesson with the song ‘Mr Golden Sun’.
2. Look at a picture of an international space station and discuss how this could be set up using giant polydrons and blocks in an aistear station.
3. Talk about aliens, what they would like – draw a picture of an alien.
4. Brainstorm constellations – display pictures of well known constellations and discuss.

Aistear Stations:

1. Make rocket mice (teacher at this station).
– empty plastic milk bottle
– tape
– template for card mouse
– children compare how far their rocket launched.

2. International space station – using giant polydrons and blocks. Space suits and helmets provided from dress-up area. Poster and colours to create a backdrop.

3. Create aliens using playdough – use an ipad and the chatterpix app to get the alien to tell it’s story.

4. Re-create constellations using black sugar paper, stars, white paint and cotton buds. (teacher at this station).

[Edel Gilmer]

Great ideas Louise, this would work so well in first/second class.

[Edel Gilmer]

Activity: Where we live

Houses and Homes

Year Level: Senior Infants

1.Start the lesson with a picture of different houses from around the world, some quirky homes like the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna or the transparent house in Japan.

2. Show pictures of the homes we live in in Dublin:

– apartments/Flats

– Semi-Detached

– Detached

– Cottage/bugalow

3. Distribute marla/playdough and ask the children to create their own homes with features such as windows/flat roofs etc.

4. children sit in a group and talk about their house and it’s feautures.

5. Ask the children to group all the houses together and show that we live in a village/community/town. Ask them to think of what other buildings are missing, scaffold their discussions by talking about the things we need to live, food to buy etc requires shops/bakeries, schools and roads are also needed. Children can create these additional buildings and add them to the ‘village’. Village could be arranged on the class ‘tuff tray’ for future work in drama/art/oral language development.

6. End the lesson with a song such as ‘gonna build a house’.

[Edel Gilmer]

The ESA website is great Dean, they run lots of competitions, First/Second classes would love to participate in some of them.

[Edel Gilmer]

Activity Set: Space and Aliens
Year Level: Senior Infants

1. I would start the lesson by reading ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers’ about a boy and a martian that land on the moon.
2. We would discuss whether aliens actually exist, what planet they would live on and what their lives would be like. I would tell them to-date no aliens have been actually discovered but that’s not to say they don’t exist.
3. Think, pair, share re what an alien might find interesting about planet earth, what animals, plants, buildings, landmarks etc do we have on earth that might fascinate a friendly alien – children draw and label these items and share with the class.
4. Talk about what an alien might look like, would they have similar features to humans, what else might they have? Children draw their alien and think about the following questions:
– What is the name of their planet?
– What is the weather like on their planet?
– Do they live in homes?
– What games do they like to play?
5. Using the app ‘Chatterpix’ by duck, duck, goose, the children take a photo of their alien picture, create a ‘mouth’ using the app and then record the information in point 4. These are shared with the class by casting the ipad through airplay.

[Edel Gilmer]

Thanks Niamh, I have JI in September too and will be trying out some of these ideas, they are all very doable in the junior classroom

[Edel Gilmer]

Activity set: The Sun and shadows

There are some great activities for the junior classes in this module. I particularly liked the video on ‘Day and night’ (https://astrosociety.org/education-outreach/early-learners/early-learners.html).

1. Children sit in a circle and discuss what the sky looks like during the daytime and what allows them to see things (i.e. the sun). Show pictures of a bright sunny day with blue skies. Present picture of a cloudy day and ask the children to describe the difference and why they can still see things (sun behind the clouds). Show pictures of night time and discuss possible sources of light.

2. Attach 2 small plastic characters to the globe, one in China and one in US, darken the room and shine a torch/lamp to the globe, show the children how, due to the earth’s rotation, it is daytime in some parts of the world and night time in other parts of the world. Ask the children to mimic the earth’s movement by standing in front of the light and standing away from the light.

3. Finish off the lesson with a ‘day and night song’ and go over the elements of the lesson.

Shadows:
On a sunny day, ask the children to work in pairs to draw their shadows. later on in the day draw their shadows in the same position and compare the 2 shadows.

[Edel Gilmer]

Thanks Mary, great idea to get the children to draw their shadows outside using chalk and observe whether their shadows are in a new position at a later stage of the day, really easy to do with all class levels.

[Edel Gilmer]

Thanks for that Dean, I like the way you connect the inquiry to the children’s lives at the start of the lesson, where do they see spills at home, what type of things spills, might be an idea to introduce the word ‘liquid’ at this point as some children might not know the term. Good idea to explore whether the thickness of the material affects it’s absorbency.

[Edel Gilmer]

Hi, my name is Edel and I will be teaching Junior Infants in September. My favourite space face it that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. Thats at least a billion trillion, it’s hard to believe that there is that many and so difficult to comprehend the vastness of space.

Inquiry based learning:

Infant classes are more than capable of participating in these lessons and they tend to get very excited about the process and the outcome. A lesson I always conduct with the infant classes is to ask ‘how could we make ice melt fast’:

– ask children to brainstorm within their groups
– record possible suggestions on the board:
place near radiator
put into the dark cofra
leave out on the corridor
add salt (teacher-led suggesetion)
leave outside in the garden
leave in a schoolbag

– each child records their prediction through a drawing a picture in either a copy or handout
– the predictions are recorded on a chart/interactive panel
– each group is given 4-5 ice-cubes and plastic see-through containers
– each group decide where to place their containers
– the class are given opportunities to check on the melting progress at intervals throughout the morning/afternoon
– results are analysed and compared with the predictions

The children love this experiment, it’s easy to set up and engages everyone in the class.

[Author]

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