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Siobhan,
what a lovely book: https://annaterrerosmartin.co.uk/publications/can-you-see-the-stars-tonight
and links to light pollution, which is dear to my astronomer-heart.
I’ll take the time today to listen to this podcast with her.
Thanks for the recommendation.
nice one Siobhan. Getting an astronaut to visit is huge – we were fortunate to connect with an astronaut for a rocket launch activity we did a few years ago, and have retired astronaut Dan Tani around a fair bit since his wife is from Cork, so they visit the grandparents a lot.
Did you know that there are only a bit more than 600 people who have ever trained as astronauts? There are now space passengers who can book to go on a sub-orbital flight. William Shatner (of Star Trek fame) was one of those – he flew to space when in 2021 when he was 90. You can read his account here.
Barbara,
I like that you have realistically assigned adults to support the young children. The example from the module was of an informal learning environment where bear’s shadow could be explored by one child at a time. Planning to have a darkened room with lots of children doing shadow work … well, best to split and have fewer.
Louise,
your description of weather stations seems a little high-tech powered for the Junior classes. I’d suggest more direct measurements using simple materials.
Infants could start with “moving air” to see if they can make puffs with different strengths – and be asked to use this knowledge to design and make a device to measure wind speed.
ESERO have this class weather station – for 3rd/4th class – but could be adapted for younger children.
Met Eireann have excellent resources on making weather instruments at https://www.met.ie/education/school-resources.
Kevin – it is also really easy to put your own constellations into Stellarium.
You can go to the folder where the constellation art is found, make a copy of those files (so you have the original!) then edit your copies. The software will use your revised versions.
You can find Patricia Reiff’s “Quick Controls” hint sheet here, and the link to the Western colour constellations is https://mst.rice.edu/ASTR530/materials/stellarium-modern-color-art.zip
Aoife,
Your planning for Aistear around the special-ness of Earth is great. You could include picture of different parts of Earth if you wanted – or lots of photos of the immediate school area if that is your focus and the children could also describe the pictures and tell you what they think is important or special about the area.
I reminds me of a radio station that I listened to when I lived in London. Each week the DJ would choose a different part of London and ask listeners to ring in with what made it special. I learnt a lot about other areas from listening.
Anita,
thanks for sharing. I find it quicker to cut out the mice en-masse – I use just one template and can cut about 4 layers at the same time and get 6+ per sheet. Then it’s just a bit of support running around with tape. I use the party ribbon from Tesco for the tails. With Junior Infants I would suggest getting an older class in to help – it’ll be a lot faster!
Start collecting your milk bottles now – and anything smaller than about 500ml gets ignored by children in favour of the 2l or 3 l bottles. The bottles do crack after a bit, so have plenty. I also use soft drink bottles – but now they are recyclable they will be less used.
Thanks for this detailed account of practical science in the infant classroom Dympna. Letting children have the time to explain their predictions – so that they are not just making “guesses” or trying to figure out what you think is the correct answer is so important. I like how you have planned for time for the children to connect to other familiar situations.
Gwen,
what a lovely set of activities around planets. Ages ago I saw an arts display of really huge planets (they were 2m across) at a planetarium – and local children had created planets to a theme using recycled materials and expressed their concerns about the Earth. They were amazing.
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 🙁