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Hi Michelle,
a teacher who took this course earlier had a great activity set based on sound and sound transmission.
https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/Sound_Insulation_Younger.pdf
She had used it with her senior infants with an inquiry focus – and they explored how well they could block sound using different materials to make earmuffs, including bags of water.
Thanks for the suggestion of using Canva – I’ve not explored it too much.
A less-tech option might be to have small groups of children try to draw each other’s aliens from a verbal description – it would probably be a lot slower, but promotes both active listening and clear descriptions. Depending on the age of the children, teacher could be the one describing the aliens. If two or more aliens were drawn on the same bit of paper, plenty of ‘bigger, smaller, on the left, to the right’… maths language could be used.
Edit – i went back and tried Canva. It cannot count!!
Prompt: a cartoon friendly alien with seven eyes and bright green skin
Ceire,
in this module we are specifically referencing the Framework for Inquiry as developed by Curious Minds and ESERO.
Have you a particular “short, engaging video or use a storybook about astronauts and the Moon” that you would use as the prompt?
The drawing activity is a nice way for the children to wonder and explore as they share what they already know.To investigate they should be able to state a starter question, then make a prediction, carry out research or a practical as an investigation before sharing results.
So, depending on their interests, they might wonder ‘why are some craters bigger than others?’ (particularly if you have photographs of the Moon’s surface), and might make craters from playdough or sand and see if they can create big craters by dropping rocks into the sand. A next step might be to see if different materials also make craters.
The key with this science inquiry is for the children to have a chance to compare their prior thinking with the results of their investigation.
Thanks for sharing Audrey, I love seeing how other people’s brains work when it comes to sorting and organising and connecting topics.
Katie,
snowman as a prompt to engage the children is super. I’d add in one extra aspect to the inquiry – which is to ask the children to justify their prediction. If they are “guessing” then they don’t have an explanation for what they think – which means they need to wonder and explore a little more before they make their prediction.
The investigation then lets them verify their prediction and might offer up unexpected results. For example – a child who thinks that the thick coat will make a snowman melt faster because it “keeps the heat in” – is referring to their own experience of being warm in a thick coat, and hasn’t yet realised where the heat to melt a snowman comes from.
It’s a bit like me trying to predict the score of a football match – I guess if its a team I don’t know, but my son can provide all the stats on all the players of both teams and give a pretty good indication of why he thinks one team will beat another.
Audrey – be sure to get a range of fizzy bottles, some of the cheaper brands don’t have much fizz. It really is worth getting the brand name colourless liquids for this – good quality sparkling water or lemonade.
Sinead.
what Audrey said!
Playful learning is at the heart of Aistear and for infants delivers opportunities for child centred inquiry where the children can explore a new phenomena, explain it with their current understanding and then be challenged to extend that learning.
Audrey,
I really like how you extended this activity with your “next step” of giving two similar pieces of playdough – hence controlling mass and size, and linked it to the previous floating.
There could be nice discussions about the need for fair testing – and how the first activity used different materials (which all have different masses, are made of different stuff and are different shapes). To really narrow the focus to just one material and to explore the effect of shape is great. This could then lead to boats and how they are made.
Kim,
you have captured perfectly one of the key parts on inquiry learning for me – the role of the teacher to support an activity but to not explicitly direct the activity.
As the teacher you need good content knowledge, and can draw on that knowledge as you question the children. Inquiry learning puts the child’s own mental modelling at the heart of the activity, and their ability to construct new knowledge that matches and explains the phenomena they observe.Great stuff.
Caoimhe,
what great statements! Thanks for sharing them.
We would then play a game of two truths and a lie. I would use my new fact “a polar bear has black skin” as one of my truths! I would also use “a penguin and a polar bear would never meet in the wild” and “polar bears drink coca cola”. The children will be invited to discuss the statements in pairs.
I also like your butterfly activity on camouflage, I have tried the coloured matchsticks on grass and how fast can you find them all. (similar to this)
Shona,
I like that you have adapted the straightforward activity that is suitable for infants to your own needs with 1st and 2nd class students.
I have used a picture of 6 different items and ask the children “Is it alive?” You could use actual items too. The items I chose were:
- plastic spider
- a flowering plant
- a dog
- a seed
- a burning candle
- a baby
Lots of discussion about how we know if something is alive or not!
Eve,
have you a particular game from ESA kids that you would recommend? My video game skills are shocking – I tried to fly the little space craft around and crashed repeatedly! https://www.esa.int/kids/en/Games/Solar_System_Explorer
Kim – you might use Stellarium (introduced in Module 4) for the starry night sky with different light pollution levels. Material from the various Dark Sky organisations might be useful too.
