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Hi Marcella,
an optional source of inspiration could be grocery magazines -and these can be printed out or shared on the whiteboard.
Dunnes currently has this link: https://www.dunnesstores.com/c/kids/highlights/kids-summer-shop
and Tesco this one: https://www.tesco.ie/zones/clothing/kids?icid=ff_hub_kids
Would you discuss the dates of the seasons? That is a thorny question that I am often asked about!
Hi Úna,
we’ll meet rockets more extensively in Module 5, but you have described perfectly how inquiry learning can be used with rockets as the activity.
The launch of a rocket makes a perfect prompt, and then the design and make acts as the investigation section. As the children play with their rockets they can make changes to improve the rocket’s flight, based on what they notice about the rocket. This gives immediate feedback.
We make a lot of rockets with children, and the excitement they share when they get the rocket to launch is very real. We find the foam rocket is good for 1st class (at the end of the year) if you have some extra hands to help with the duct tape. 2nd and up are fine with it, and 3rd class children usually have the record for how fast they can make one (an entire class in about 23 minutes).
Lorraine,
connecting a known alien to an unknown planet and considering what it ‘might look, smell, feel and sound like.’ is brilliant. This really connects the children’s thinking about living things to the environment of the living thing.
Aisling – NOPE.
I am not waiting until Jan 2026 for my next birthday, even if it will be my 32nd!
Mars
Your Martian Age
Days Old: 20,836.9
Years Old: 31.24
Next Birthday: Jan 16, 2026Celine,
I really like that you can search the World’s Largest Lesson by age group, SDG and by topic. What a great resource, thanks for sharing.
I’ll be borrowing from it for my Brownie Guides, since IGG offers badges based on different SDGs.
Aisling,
is this the one you have used?
https://www.schoolsobservatory.org/things-to-do/space-age-calculator
I’ve always thought that I was in my twenties on Mars, but it has me at 31! I suppose using roughly 2 Earth years is a Mars year was not quite accurate 😉
This one asks for the date of birth to be input as dd/mm/yy which isn’t something very young children would know easily, so you might have to put this in from your own records.
Laura’s Star is a lovely story of friendship, and stars that can be seen at night.
There is this video of it – but I kept the sound off and just advanced so I could read the story myself – not a fan of this narration.
https://youtu.be/SFK9nWM5DRg?si=1JobISGjXnyEThPy
It looks to be part of a larger series – have you read any of the others?
Rohana,
would it look like this one?
https://www.redtedart.com/paper-plate-star-twirler/
These swirls could be used in investigative work in the classroom since they are quite like the Convection Snake from this curious minds activity: https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/snake_spiral.pdf
which suggest that The children can develop their own questions about how heat travels and test them.
Rachael,
Your Aistear summary is super – thanks for sharing. And with junior infants, even though we’ve had a not great summer, some of them might have been to the beach and will be able to recall that in September/October.
Here is a sample video of being sun smart:
https://youtu.be/7eKNU_dGv4Q?si=73BepnQxy_y88tpX
from SunSmart, who have a whole host of resources: https://www.sunsmart.com.au/advice-for/schools-early-childhood/primary-school-resources
Orla,
thanks for sharing the story of Sam and Zoey going to space
“Chicken in Space” by Adam Lehrhaupt.
https://youtu.be/LtL0jj1u3iU?si=ou59yxErzTuOXtpM
very imaginary and lots of opportunity for the children to share what they might know about real asteroids, comets or alien attach vessels.
We meet the Balloon Rockets in Module 5: https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/rocket_launch.pdf
Hi Mark,
those of us of a certain age remember the tag line of the first Alien film.
I’m not suggesting you use that as your prompt! Scare the wits out of me when I eventually got around to seeing the film.
You have described an engaging task, and one that the children can extend with their own understanding coming into play. Once they find out that sound can travel through materials they can explore different materials that absorb or more clearly transmit sounds.
From Curious Minds you can find:
Leeanne,
when looking at the phases of the Moon in primary schools, keep the emphasis very much on the appearance of the shadow and the light and how a 3-D object can be lit on one side only by a single light source.
Please note that the children will only be able to observe the Moon showing the correct phases when they are they person holding the styrofoam ball – from the side they will see the same appearance of a half lit sphere, since they are not in the centre of the activity, so it isn’t possible for “While one student moves the Moon around the “Earth,” the others will observe and sketch the phases they see in sequence (New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon, Last Quarter, etc.).”
See this video for my favourite way to carry this out, which I usually do with second level students. Use the Sun as the light source, and go outside!
https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/download-view.cfm?Doc_ID=329
https://youtu.be/ai9VcMLBiQg?si=voI1gFCBIpwxRKkW
Aoife,
No Place like Space has such simple rhyming and the distinctive cartoon style of the Cat in the Hat.
https://youtu.be/vez_K8GhgqE?si=aGTNigdy5HY6WPun
You might use the pictures “Ask the children to draw a picture of what they think space looks like.” as assessment of learning, as the children can add to them with different colours over the week.
Susie,
I found the book here: https://annabelleandaiden.com/product/how-we-found-the-earth-is-round/.
The interview with the author here gives a sense of the book.
The Eratosthenes experiment gets carried out each year – you can find an archive of past measurements here: https://eratosthenes.eu/wordpress/. For a senior class or second level!
Time zones are tricky for most people to get their heads around – I’m sure most of us have been woken up by a family member in another country getting the time wrong!
Susie,
in this module we have introduced the Framework for Inquiry as a guide for inquiry in Irish classrooms.
The structure of Engage / Investigate / take the Next Step and then Reflect can be used to centre the learning on the child, with their own science understanding being improved and consolidated through the inquiry steps.
If you have stations set up, a shared prompt through a picture book (see the many suggested ones here: https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SpaceWeekJunior-1.pdf) can be ideal to engage the children.
I’d choose open ended activities, and perhaps share ‘task descriptors’ that give the children the method to make a thing, and let them then explore their understanding through play.
We will meet rockets in Module5, planets in Module2, stars in Module3, so you may want to incorporate some of those specific activities into this plan.