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Sounds like a lot of fun Ashling. Using a story such as The Way Back Home lets the children see the fun of ‘flying to plane to the Moon, parachuting back home and then using a rope to climb back up.’ All fun, but not realistic at all. I’d then show a rocket launch video – and explain that rockets are how people actually get to the Moon. You might check out the current Artemis mission, which is planning to return humans to the Moon.
Anita,
I see that you have planned this as a visual arts activity – but it would be very easy for the children to include the science skills of Design and Make and explain how their houses are good for cold weather / windy weather / rainy weather etc. They could carry out simple tests on their constructed houses to see if they would withstand wind. Amazing Triangles would be a good activity to share with them.
Naomi,
I love your cultural connections to the Moon and to their own story. UNAWE resources will support you in that, since the children may or may not have stories from their own homes/backgrounds.
There is a map of the Moon at AstroEDU.
https://astroedui18n-live-f4d80dfc7ba44a6283e91-64c3f57.divio-media.com/documents/moon_en.pdf
Áine, with 1st class you can be quite open on how they might want to make their rocket, and there could be some great discussions on fair testing if they wanted to compare their rockets with each other. I have made the foam and rubber band rockets with 1st class, with a few helping adults.
Or, you could demo one of the water rockets that use bicycle pumps as an exciting prompt.
There is a school in Galway that launches a rocket a day during Space Week.
You can see some examples here.
http://junior.renmoreschool.com/News/Making-and-Flying-Foam-Rockets-(Projectiles)/21203/Index.html
http://junior.renmoreschool.com/News/Fizzy-Rockets/22880/Index.html
http://junior.renmoreschool.com/News/Balloon-Rockets-(Projectiles)/23654/Index.html
http://junior.renmoreschool.com/News/Using-2D-and-3D-shapes-to-make-air-rockets/21977/Index.html
http://junior.renmoreschool.com/News/Space-Week-Rockets/24428/Index.html
Naomi – this is a lovely way to support children learning about constellations.
With light pollution ever increasing, if you are a city based school there is a good chance that the children haven’t seen more than just the very brightest stars in the sky. Only children who are lucky enough to live in more remote areas can enjoy the sky 🙁
Aha – I think I know which school you are at! I just linked the website in response to another teacher’s space week rocket plans.
Hi Karen,
have you missed out a step? I can’t quite figure out how the straw will launch the rocket, since the rocket seems to be a big cone.
The paper rocket from Curious Minds makes a small, neat rocket, but needs pretty good fine motor skills to complete.
Áine, you can see a range of rockets in the posts from Renmore Junior School in Galway – they make a rocket a day during Space Week.
http://junior.renmoreschool.com/ and search rocket for a whole set of images and videos.
Valerie,
you have outlined a detailed series of activities, and named specific books – which I really appreciate.
I like how you have planned for gathering information at the start so that children do have concrete facts that they can incorporate into their understanding, and then you plan for active inquiry on what makes craters big or small etc.
Great stuff.
Sinead – so not in July 🙂
I like your final activity of art by making a big Sun. You could refer back to that over the whole year as you look at other space ideas – and relate to the role the Sun has in the solar system and to life on Earth.
Valerie,
I’m kicking myself that I didn’t take a picture of a galaxy wall display that I once made with children. We all created one or more spatter star paintings on black card, then arranged them with denser regions and sparser regions to create a huge galaxy on the window. It was amazing and the children could see that stars make up galaxies.
Karen,
creating aliens from craft material is a great design and make task. If you wanted children to use their scientific understanding of living things, you could ask them to group the made aliens into families – or, for slightly older children – into ecosystems.
I have done this before, by asking — where would this alien live? it looks like it has big eyes, so is it like an owl that goes out at night? etc.
Valerie,
letting each group try out the activity in their own way is a natural way to bring fair testing into discussion. Can results be compared? Why or why not? This is the key to the “Sharing: Interpreting the data / results” part of the Investigation Stage of the Framework for Inquiry.
Mary – thanks for the heads up on the book, I’ll look out for it.
The open ended make a rocket fits so well with the Design & Make skills of the science curriculum, as they Plan, Make and Evaluate with everyday materials.