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I think it’s quite easy to celebrate Space Week on a class by class basis even if it isn’t necessarily celebrated on a whole school level. But maybe the idea might be picked up on if you celebrate it.
Class Plan for Space Week for 1st/2nd.
General themes: The moon, stars and planets, Gravity, The Sun, Rockets, Aliens
Science Investigation: How does weight impact gravitational pull, how does the sun position impact shadows, make mice rockets
History: First Man on the Moon
Geography: Night and Day across the world
English: vocabulary associated with space.
Oral language game: I went to space and I saw a….
Books: Way Home, The Dinosaur that pooped a planet, Aliens love underpants
Writing- labelling planets, constellation. Use of adjectives to describe martians
Gaeilge: basic space vocabulary.
Maths: space themed word problems
Music: The Planet Song, Zoom zoom we’re going to the Moon.
Art: design and make an alien
P.e. Martian Martian may I cross the galaxy!
Drama: Role play – interview an alien
A video of a real rocket launching into space would be a great way to engage the children and captivate their imagination! While now obvious I hadn’t thought on it and will add it to my future rocket building lessons!
Activity: Weather
Animals in the cold
Infants
I would introduce the topic by reading Jonty Gentoo by Julia Donaldson. This story follows a penguin from the zoo to the north pole and then finally the south pole. I would discuss how the weather changes on his journey and how he needs to adapt. I would then then look at how penguins adapt to the cold by forming huddles and keeping the smallest and most vulnerable penguin in the middle of the huddle to protect them from the coldest weather.
I would then get the children to pretend they are making a journey to one of the poles and in pairs ‘pack’ their suitcase for their journey by getting them to draw items onto a suitcase template.
Finish up by asking questions such as why do we need to pack extra clothes for cold places and animals such as polar bears, seal and penguins don’t. Talk about how fur, fat and blubber act like extra layers of clothing for these animals.
Hi Sarah,
I was not familiar with the book ‘A house is a house for me’ but I love this as a way of teaching children about different homes and how they can appear different and take different forms for different people and also how some children may have more than than one house! Having had a read of the book via YouTube it’s got some lovely ideas. I also love the idea that a book is a home for a story, I will definitely be using that quote for writing and reading lesson and also.
Activity Set: Space and Aliens
Class: Infants
Introduction: show a clip from E.T. to start a discussion around aliens and question the children. Do we know what aliens look like? What do you think? Where would they live? What do they eat?
Main body of lesson: children in pairs create and make their own aliens using toilet rolls and a selection of art and craft activities such as crepe paper, straws, eyes, feathers, materials etc. Teacher circulates asking questions about their aliens to encourage further thinking and discussion such as how does your alien move?
Conclusion: children introduce their aliens to their class.
Further extension of a drama lesson where children role play as their alien and interview each other. Another extension could be a lesson around where their alien lives and creating a home for their alien. They could draw or paint a scene with their alien or write a piece describing where it lives.This is a lovely explorative set of lessons for junior classes. I liked how you also looked at where the aliens lived and made comparisons. My my own experience children love creating characters and settings and this would allow you to integrate the topic into some English as part of narrative writing. Or even a simple oral language games using adjectives to describe their monsters. Another way to integrate this topic would be role play in drama. One child could ‘be’ their alien and the other children could interview them. This would encourage the children to think about where the aliens come from and how life would be different where their aliens live. The theme of aliens really lends itself to integration and is a great cross curricular area for planning.
Activity Set: The Sun and Shadows
Class: Junior and Senior Infants
Strand: Energy and Forces – Light
Duration: 40–45 minutesLearning Objectives:
-Recognise that the Sun is a source of light.
-Explore how shadows are formed.
-Investigate how moving a light source changes a shadow.
-Observe shadows outdoors.
-Use vocabulary such as light, shadow, sun, torch, bigger, smaller, near, far
Materials needed: torches, plastic animals (one per pair), white paper or card, pencil (for outdoor activity)
Introduction (5–10 mins): Ask the children
What gives us light during the day? What gives us light when it is dark? Have you ever noticed your shadow? What do you think makes a shadow? Do shadows always look the same?
Investigation: investigate how plastic toy animals make shadows outside.
Question: How can we change a shadow?
Equipment: Each pair receives:
* One torch
* One plastic animal
* One sheet of white paperTake the children outside to a sunny spot. I will then allow children to explore before giving prompts.
* Where is the shadow?
* What happened when we moved the animal?
* Can you make the biggest shadow?
* Can you make the smallest shadow?A discussion would then be had:
* Light cannot pass through the animal. This creates a shadow.
* Moving the light changes the size and direction of the shadow.Return to playground later on in the day and/or a different spot and ask:
* Has the shadow stayed in the same place?
* Has it changed?
* Why do you think that happened?* Can you lose your shadow?
* What happens when you move?
* Why do we only have shadows when there is light?Conclusion (5 minutes)
Gather the children together and discuss what they learned.
Ask:
* What makes a shadow?
* Can we have a shadow without light?
* How did we make the animals shadow bigger/smaller?
* Did you notice any other shadows outside?Hi my name is Emma and I am a mainstream class teacher in first and second class, who will be jobsharing next year for the first time. As It will be my second year to have my second class group (them being first class last year) I am hoping to get some fresh ideas from this course and some new investigations to complete in the classroom this year.
I found the fact about why astronauts faces and why they can appear puffy interesting and I think my class will be interested to learn this next year too!
I would use this fact as a stimulus for a gravity based investigation. I like the idea of allowing the children to safely stand at a height and to drop items exploring how they fall, how fast they fall etc. I think this could be tied in with mathematics and objects that fall in a similar way could be weighed to see how weight can impact the pull of an object towards the ground. Children could then go on to predict how quickly objects will fall from a height based on their weight.
Sinking and floating is always a favourite lesson in the junior classes I find, perhaps due to the investigation with water element which lends itself to water play. It’s also very easy for the children to predict, record and compare their results. It’s easy to set up as a group activity which again is an element that is always enjoyed by the children.
If completed in groups the children could then come together with their results and see if they can group or make connections between objects that they found would float or sink. This can then be further investigated i.e. what happens paper objects, what happens metal objects, how about plastic? Why does one group of objects float but another sink? And so forth. It could possibly extend beyond one lesson if a variety of objects were used by each group.