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Hi Michelle,
I’m glad you have shared your experience with ramps – I also make marble runs with pipe insulation cut in half lengthways.
Please see this site about ramps, where they argue that ramps and pathways is one of the best activities for teaching forces and inquiry science with young children.
They found
Ramps and Pathways gives children endless possibilities to think and create. They build, test their ramp structures, make adjustments, and try again until they are successful. We have found that children are motivated to engage in this process because of the intriguing nature of the materials.
Summary article here: https://qappd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/fun_physical_science.pdf
Deirdre,
we used to have a sheet of dots that children could use to make their own constellations.
Similar to it are these set of the 3 night sky pictures, with 3 constellations to find from Project Astro – Constellation Detective.
I have these printed A3 size, laminated, and I tape them to the bottom of the table so that children can lie on their backs and look up at the “sky” to find the constellation.
Hi Dolores,
you have clearly engaged with the framework for inquiry and how children can learn science through the stepped structure of the framework.
We used a similar activity with a “life in space” theme in this resource from 2020 – Creeping Colours from Curious Minds was extended to model identifying the signs of life by spectroscopy.
That could make a next step for your early finishers.
Anne,
how will you make different weight mice? I suppose you could try to fix a little bit of blu-tack into the inside of the cone, but I’m not sure there would be much difference given how small the rocket mice are.
Different masses and positioning of the mass on a straw paper rocket is something I do with TY students – and for them the science is a bit tricky.
You can read this teacher level article about how mass and rockets interact and pick up some student centred activities from this great Rockets Educator Guide.
What a lovely silly book
Nice to link the facts that the children may know about the Moon to the picture book.
– they could wonder if the Moon always looks full?
– they could wonder if there are tourist rockets to the Moon? (not yet, but soon!)
Laura,
can you give examples of prompts that you have found suitable? I agree that scenarios work nicely. There has to be some reason why children should want to find out more!
Rachel, how simple and how much fun to re-created huddling on a cold day.
Lots of opportunity for children to express themselves and work out how they can incorporate the views of everyone – and have to consider their own spatial position relative to the group.
Ideally you could photograph this from an upper window of the school and have a record that they could refer to. I’m thinking they could have cards with their names on it and could hold them up so they can see if they were middle (and feeling warmer) or outer edge and feeling cooler.
I wonder if there is a minimum size huddle to feel warm ? and there is a “take the next step”….
Laura,
for Junior Infants this activity lets them share their understanding and check it in a simple way – which is what inquiry learning is all about. Since this likely to be the end of the school year – I wonder if you could return to it with a class the following winter — and help them to look at the more complex ideas of how the temperature depends on sunlight but also on time of year.
Hi Sinead,
if you want to read more about timekeeping on Mars, see this article from 2021.
I hadn’t realised that the calendar started in April 1955, but I do know that I am still in my 20s if I count my age in Mars Years.
At the start of each Mars mission the science teams tries to keep on Mars time – so they come to work 40 minutes later each day. See this article about it.
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/living-on-mars-time/
https://www.space.com/perseverance-rover-mission-on-mars-time
Teddy’s raincoat can be a great prompt for inquiry learning, particularly if you have a range of materials for the children to use to make the raincoat. I find that cultivating a slightly befuddled air is good – and resist the urge to tell the children which is waterproof or not. Claim that you used different materials last time your class did this and you don’t know which of these are waterproof…
worth noting that the ones you can get here don’t seem as bright as the ones in the video — perhaps because our uv from the Sun is less intense?
Stephanie,
you are so right about
It is also important to discuss with the class about how it doesn’t matter if your prediction is right or wrong, as both results teach us something new.
and children should realise that if their prediction was wrong, that their science understanding can be modified.
There was a nice example of this in the ramps material that we were discussing last week – where a child might think that the lighter car will go further since a lighter toy can be thrown further than a heavier toy, they can then test this – and will likely find that the heavier object is less affected by friction, so goes further – and so will have to reconsider how different forces are acting on the object.
Muireann,
you have described an attractive demonstration that could be used as a prompt for the children to engage with your topic.
With this tornado demo, the children might wonder about pouring smoothly – so you could give them a range of containers and water or other liquids to see how pouring creates glugs / noise / bubbles.
They might know about hot water bottles and how it is tricky to pour into a hot water bottle since the air has to come out.
In all inquiry activities the children should have a chance to share what they understand of the science, and make testable predictions. Some of these predictions may lead to a full-on, fair test activity, some might be quickly checked and then the children will move on.
Grace,
When planning science inquiry it is good to reference the Framework for Inquiry that specifically deals with child lead inquiry science, where the children’s science understanding is shared, leading to a testable question.
So if children are playing with moon sand (https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/moon-sand) they might wonder ‘how long moon sand keeps its shape?’ They might ask ‘how much can you push moon sand before it crumples?’ A bit trickier to explain might be changing the recipe for moon sand and seeing does it change its properties.
If they build working rocket models, then they can explore forces, compare distance travelled and share those results.
With inquiry learning the children should improve their science content understanding by acting as scientists and testing their ideas.
And about the blood from space – I found this article that says probably not true.
Rachel,
you have clearly linked the science content and skills that you want the children to engage with, to a clear, relevant context. Nicely done.
Anne- have you tried to play the Paxi game? I crashed 5 times and have given up. Different set of skills!
Stellarium is great- and as I like to point out, once it is downloaded you don’t need the internet, so you can let children explore away. I agree that 2nd class would make better independent use of it than younger children.
APOD is super – I heard a suggestion of using it as a prompt for descriptive language.
