Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Aine. This is a great lesson. I really like the fact that your lesson acknowledges that messy tactile stuff is not for all children and offers choices and adaptations for those who have sensory or other issues around this. Well done.
I am choosing a lesson on rockets for my junior infant class.
Some stories to engage the children might be Jill Murphy’s Whatever Next or even the simple board book Maisy’s rocket. Since Maisy is a mouse this one would work really well for the rocket mouse lesson.
I Would use a rocket launch video as my lesson starter. We would discuss how the rocket gets off the ground. Thrust is a kind of very strong push.
We are now going to explore a thrust or push using balloons.
Teacher will inflate a balloon and then let it go. We will discuss what happened. I want the children to understand that air takes up space and that the escaping air creates a push.
We will then set up the balloon rocket as described in this module. It can be hard to find ways to tie string across the classrrom walls etc but tying it from chair to chair will work well and is at a good height for the children to observe. Before launching the rocket children will predict which direction it will go and how far.
Our countdown brings in some maths here.
After observing what happens children can offer their observations and theories. They can ask questions and wonder. What would happen with different sizes or shapes of balloons. They can make more predictions perhaps about speed or distances. We can then try using balloons inflated to large, medium, small sizes as well as round and long balloons. More maths here in measuring the distances. With infants we can measure using footsteps/ handspans or classroom objects like copies.
This would be a nice activity during Space Week and could be followed up by rocket mice or Marvin and Milo’s penny rocket.Hi Ruth
I think your ideas here are great for infants. They would really enjoy the astronaut/space role play. If you had some large cardboard boxes I imagine they’d build a great rocket for their role play.
Your idea for using lego to build a space buggy sounds excellent. Lego is always so popular.
The old favourite story “Whatever Next ” would fit in well with your theme here.
This module has a wealth of online resources and I have chosen to have a good look at the Marvin and Milo resources.
There are many many experiments and activities on this site which lend themselves to the new stem curriculum’s learning objectives and development of key competencies. The activities each havr a heading which , while not totally aligned, can help us to see where they fit in the curriculum eg “force” “properties of matter”.
I have chosen the alka seltzer rocket activity as it clearly will bring the fun in to science in the classroo..
The materials needed are film canisters, soluble tablets, water and newspaper. Film canisters are obsolete these days but can still be purchased on amazon and elsewhere presumably mostly for activities like this one.
I would show the children the cannisters and ask if theyve seen them before or know what they are. I will briefly explain. I will then show the tablets and ask tge same question, do they know what they are? What you do with them? What happens when you put them in water? What would you see/hear when this happens? This involves the children in being communicators and using language.
We will then dissolve a tablet in a glass of water and observe, look, listen and discuss. We can hypothesise about what we think is happening.
I will then explain the activity involving the film cannisters and tabs.
Children can predict the outcome and give reasons.
We will then carry out the activity and observe what happens. There should be great wonder and excitement when the rocket takes off.
Finally we can discuss what we think caused the rocket to launch.
As a fun follow up children could work in groups to simultaneously launch multiple film cannisters seeing whose launches first/ goes highest etc and wondering what factors effect this.
We will record predictions and results using the ipad camera.Hi Niall,
I love your suggestion of using that as a discussion starter. I won’t show the junior infants a xenomorph though.
Hi Rachel
I really like your use of group work in this lesson and the group presentations is an excellent idea.
I was not aware that BCO have an outreach night sky dome available to schools. Being in Drogheda might be too far out of their area but I just discovered that Armagh planetarium do something similar for schools.
I am choosing the activity set on the stars. This will be a number of lessons for junior infants.
Our starter is “Twinkle, twinkle little star”. Children recite and duscuss ” how I wonder what you are”. Children can give ideas of what a star is,what does it look like?, size/shape etc.
I will then read the story ” How to catch a Star” by Oliver Jeffers. Again this will prompt duscussion. Can we reach/ touch a star ? We will eventually be told what a star actually is and how far away they are.
We can discuss the night sky, how many stars can we see? We can then introduce the idea of constellations, how people long ago “joined the dots” to make pictures of the star groups. We will view pictures of some well known constellations.
We will use the draw your own constellation activity and then move on ti children designing their own constellations. We will use black paper with star stickers or white paint dotted on with cotton buds. Children will join their stars to make pictures and name their own constellation. We can display them on our notice board and add a whole class moon collage to create our own night sky with new, as yet undiscovered, constellations.Hi Christine
I really like your craters activity. It is certainly fun and should prompt plenty of questions and wondering. You probably already thought of this but dropping the objects from different heights could be an interesting part of this activity.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>I would choose to use the activity set “The moon”.
I would start with a prompt question “what can you see in the sky ”
The children could list many things eg birds, clouds, planes, sun . We would narrow the discussion to what is in the sky at night. Moon, stars, planets, planes. Can you see the sun at night? Can you see the moon during the day? What does the moon look like? Show children a paper plate, a paper plate cut in half, a ball. They choose which one the moon resembles. This can lead us to a discussion of how the moon looks different at different times and to how it is actually spherical and reflecting sunlight.
From here i would use the draw the moon over 4 weeks activity.
During those weeks I would read some moon related stories. Happy birthday Moon by Frank Asch, cant you sleep little bear by Martin Waddell and whatever Next by Jill Murphy.
As a follow up to the discussion of moon phases outlined in this module I would read two stories which illustrate those phases and are appropriate for infants Moonbear by Frank Asch and Papa please get the moon for me by Eric Carle.</p>
I would also use the moon phases dance. It seems like a great phone activity and a lovely way to incorporate some movement into my moomoon related lessons.For art I would do a simple painting activity with flour mixed into white paint. The children paint a moon shape and then press circular objects like lids etc in to the thick paint to make e craters.
Hi Susan
I like the idea of using this lesson with your children with additional needs. It should, indeed be the kind of lesson to excite their interest. It might be a nice idea to let them use ipads to take pictures or make videos showing their work.
I am teaching junior infants and will plan on teaching the lesson on finding the best material to soak up a spill. As stated here a next logical lesson might be based around testing materials for their waterproof qualities. I would frame it as making an umbrella for teddy.
The Oxford reading tree book “The Big Box” might be a good prompt or conversation starter for this lesson. In this story the children make a playhouse with large cardboard boxes but it collapses when it is soaked by rain. It could prompt a conversation around materials which would be better or not for keeping out rain.
A fun activity would be to have some sheets of different materials and ask children to volunteer to sit under these while water is dripped on.I have done this with infants and they had great fun pouring water on to a wooden tray or plastic/ metal box lid held above a classmate’s head. They of course know that kitchen roll will not protect them but a brave soul wont mind a few drips from a pipette.
I will then have prepared a collection of small pieces of materials for each child. This could be a station during Aistear time. They can test these for waterproof qualities with pipettes and water, having first recorded their predictions . They can then discuss the results and choose the best materials to stick on to a picture of teddy’s umbrella. I think this will be a fun enquiry based lesson for infants.Hi. I’m Fiona and I teach junior infants. I love the fact that soace, being a vacuum, is silent. Can you imagine absolute silence? And you know ” in space noone can hear you scream” . 🤣
I have chosen the planets activity set. I will begin by asking the children what they know about planets/what planet we live on etc. After the discussion I will read the very simple book Hello World! Solar System by Jill McDonald to the children There are probably lots of other similar books you could use. We could then have a chat about anything we have learned.
Next we could do our planet song. I noticed that the “Family of the sun” song includes Pluto but we could just explain that it is a dwarf planet and too small to be called an actual planet. I always liked the Blues clues planet song but it also has the Pluto problem.
I tend to use this one more now as it is about the 8 planets
Afterwards we would go to the p.e. hall for the amazing activities described in the pdf.
Finally, I have an inflatable solar system set so I would have the children holding their planets and revolving around a child holding the sun as a live solar system.
I agree Deirdre that the day and night demonstration with torch/globe/bears and children’s bodies is super. When you’ve finished all your excellent day and night activities you could do a nice simple art activity. Children can make a picture which is half day and half night. Stick an A5 piece of white paper on one half of an A4 black piece of paper. Children draw a daytime picture/activity on the white side with crayons and a night time one on the black with chalks. This can look really effective.