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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.
Thanks for the book recommendation Audrey,
is it this one: Can You See The Stars Tonight – Anna Terreros-Martin
https://youtu.be/PuldpLYMteY?si=Wi6wibkUdSZZ8LX2
She only read the first part of the book, and it was mostly about lost puffins! Does the rest of the book get into constellations?
I’m slightly unsure about not being able to see the Moon due to light pollution – that is some very bad light pollution!!
With the day and night activity, would you have an overlap area for objects that can be seen both in the day and in the night? (like the Moon).
Aoife,
thanks for the book recommendation. I’m not familiar with it, but see that Cork County Council Library service has it as one of their borrowable books:
The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins – 10 copies
Can you imagine being a male emperor penguin and standing around in the freezing cold with an egg on your feet for two months. Welcome to the story of the world’s most devoted dad!There are Humboldt Penguins at Fota, and Fota shared this workbook with images about them: https://www.fotawildlife.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HumboldtPenguinWorkbook.pdf
Interestingly – none of the adaptations they list are to do with being in a cold climate!
Reading about the Penguins at Fota, I discovered that there are penguins on the Galapagos, which is at the equator. This could be very interesting ‘next step’ as the children test how a penguin might be different in a much warmer climate.
https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/galapagos-penguin-facts/
In the discussion that you propose, would their be the opportunity for the children to test their ideas? They might wonder how thick fur or feathers can help keep something that is warm warm, or something that is cold, cold. They could try changing number of layers of a jumper around their hand and does their hand stay warm?
Claire,
would you run the weather chart all year? I think it would take more than a week or two to see different seasons.
Which season dates would you teach? I have learnt to use the Irish ones since I have lived here, and it bugs me (a bit) that Met Eireann don’t!
https://www.met.ie/meteorological-spring-begins-wednesday-1st-march-2023
I like how they state:
Is it 1st March or the Vernal Equinox or St Brigid’s Day the start of Spring?
In Ireland, it’s all of them.
While the first day of meteorological spring is 1st March each year.
Audrey,
the mnemonic of ‘my very educated easy method just speeds up naming planets’ is great for the order from the Sun, but if you have started with the order of size, then you would use:
My method very educated naming up speeds just! ( I left out dwarf planet Pluto).
Would you look at drawing the orbits even slightly to scale, or just as circles?
There are scale solar system details in this resource from spaceweek.ie:
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Solar-System-Walk.pdf
Claire,
what a fun prompt! Stories that the children are familiar with can serve such a great purpose. How do you test the “blow your house down?”
Do you have a hair dryer that you use so that there is the same force each time? There could be a nice link to fair testing in this activity, particularly if you demonstrated blowing the house down with the wolf giving only a tiny puff to one house and bigger puff to another!
Hi Mike,
there is a STEM activity based on physical activity like an astronaut. It was designed for slightly older children, but could be adapted for younger classes.
You can find it as Mission X, Train Like an Astronaut, and a summary pdf is here: https://www.stem.org.uk/system/files/elibrary-resources/2020/12/English_all%20activities.pdf
With the Olympics this summer, astronauts on the ISS have been doing space Olympics again! Here they are in 2021: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2021/08/Space_Olympics_full_video
and this summer:
https://youtu.be/ycDoaIn6wuk?si=uyib_AXynFzF08QH
Irene,
those “I wonder..” and “what if..” are so useful with inquiry activities. The children should feel that their ideas are valuable and can be tested, and that they don’t need to keep checking with teacher if they are ‘right’.
I like the discussion on staying afloat as the next step – so relevant to the many of us who live near the coast or on a river.
Rachael,
is this the song?
https://youtu.be/KQk3l3fSsOE?si=lTfnmWJyIYN0Gn53
The planets give lots of opportunity to combine maths and science, particularly around space, shape and measure (compare and order).
