[Frances McCarthy]

Ciara,

I love your plans for the teddy to visit with each child, and how natural to make him an umbrella.

Using

discussion, critical thinking, investigative learning and lots of predicting.

can be structured with the framework for inquiry  with the prompt of teddy’s umbrella, lots of wondering (as discussion) and then exploring at the water table. This could be a design and make if they find out which materials are waterproof, then consider what other requirements there are for an umbrella. They might look at a material being flexible so that the umbrella can fold, or light weight, so that teddy can hold up the umbrella, or they might look at the colour being a colour that they like…

[Frances McCarthy]

Ailbhe,

the bridge making activity from Curious Minds (and in Irish ) uses paper to make bridges – and I have tried this with 7-8 year olds and they find it surprisingly hard to get bridges made and tested within 40 minutes. As long as you allow plenty of time (perhaps over a few weeks) this can really work. Amazing triangles / (in Irish) is a good initial activity, to help the children explore what structures are strong.

[Frances McCarthy]

Aoife,

that’s a lovely set of activities, very accessible for an infant class. May I share it in the end of course summary?

[Frances McCarthy]

Sheelagh,

demonstration and then exploration fits so well with the inquiry approach. The demonstration acts as the prompt and gives children the experience of a successful version of whatever they are investigating. They can then find out more and deepen their understanding.

[Frances McCarthy]

Emma,

counting stars is a nice way to introduce sampling and estimation with a slightly older class.

With a large image – how do we check how many of a thing are shown? We sample a small part of the image and then multiply it out.

This is particularly important with galaxies, where we have only take deep sky images of a fraction of the sky, so we use the density of galaxies in one area to extrapolate out.

See this article about it: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a32109712/how-many-galaxies/

The Webb telescope is so good, that galaxies appear in almost every image it takes – even when it is looking at something much closer!

New Webb Image Captures Clearest View of Neptune’s Rings in Decades

[Frances McCarthy]

Lauren,

here is a direct YouTube link to that video:

https://youtu.be/CrKw2ysZUEo?si=BKTQCCbbQIgWWPLg

I like how you have linked the clothing that we wear in different weather conditions to the hot and cold theme.

[Frances McCarthy]

Hi Leeanne

ESERO’s Design a Spacesuit has some nice images that would support this activity.

To bring out the inquiry aspect of this, (referencing the Curious Minds ESERO Framework for Inquiry) I would use the scenario of designing a spacesuit as the prompt, encourage the children to wonder and explore the different types of clothing. As you have mentioned, one criteria is “keep them warm”, so the children could carry out an investigation as to which of the materials you have provided keep something warm the longest. In a typical classroom this often means having something hot inside the fabric  – which can be a bit hazardous (at second level this is often hot water inside metal cans with different layers of insulation, a thermometer measuring the temperature), so this could be modified to “keep something cold” – (the heat from outside can’t get in). Then you can look at keeping an ice cube cold – and will a thick warm sock keep it cold or will a thin tight be better? This can be the starter question and they can share their thinking as they make a prediction.

Once they have shared results, they can consider their next step, which could be their design of the suit using the materials that they have found best to keep the heat out (which is the same as heat in).

[Frances McCarthy]

Thanks for sharing the video links, your post got caught in pending, so sorry for the delay in it appearing.

Would you carry out a practical investigation about the layers of fat? Blubber glove has been described by a few other teachers.

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/blubber-gloves

[Frances McCarthy]

Anna,

I’d change the order slightly in the activity, and give the children some experience with floating and sinking actual objects before asking them to

using critical thinking they must figure out which objects float/sink

Their own mental models of why things float and sink can be built up through play and observing a range of toys or other items in the classroom.

ESERO have a suggested range of objects (the ones that are dropped in this module) that can also be floated (see  https://esero.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/04_Does-Saturn-float.pdf). In this case, they can explore, draw generalisations, then make predictions for other objects to float and sink.

I’d actually disagree with the statement at the end of the Saturn sheet –

It is important that the children discover that whether an object sinks or floats depends on the material it is made from and not its shape; it is not dependent on the size of the object.

Since you can shape plasticine to float by making it into a boat or raft shape.

 

[Frances McCarthy]

Margaret,

I’ve made this one with ages 7-10, it is very simple and they loved choosing their own colours and making stars with different coloured points. Some stuck them together as suggested, others turned the points around.

I used regular orgami paper (15cm by 15cm) that I had cut into 4 squares, each square being 7.5cm on a side, so that each star point turns out about  10cm long and 5cm across. You need the equivalent of 2 sheets per star (8 points).

[Frances McCarthy]

Mark,

I like how you have planned this as a unit, and it’ll probably take place over the month as you have suggested.

In the autumn, the 3rd quarter Moon is high in the sky in the mornings. It will be great to view last week of September and last week of October at around 10am. Either of these times would be great to start this unit, since we must (I hope) get at least one sunny morning in a week!

[Frances McCarthy]

Rachel,

there are a few called the Seasons song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZjpI6fgYSY 

from Have Fun Teaching

with these lyrics:

Here we go, oh, oh
Seasons of the year

Here comes the spring with the rain pouring down
Here comes the spring with the flowers in the ground
Here comes the spring with the rainbow in the sky
Here comes the spring to bring new life

Here comes the summer with the heat from the sun
Here comes the summer with the kids having fun
Here comes the summer with the warm breeze
Here comes the summer with the trees so green

Here comes the fall with the leaves changing color
Here comes the fall with the climate getting cooler
Here comes the fall with the leaves falling down
Here comes the fall with the wind blowing loud

Here comes the winter with the ice and the snow
Here comes the winter with the freezing cold
Here comes the winter with the days getting shorter
Here comes the winter with the nights getting longer

or

https://youtu.be/C_Sc5ZjdfFI?si=9LZBSfzyQDhtbjPQ

from Super Simple Songs

Lyrics:
Winter and spring, summer and fall.
No matter the season, I love them all.
There’s always a reason to wake up and say,
“What a lovely season it is today!”

In the spring I love the flowers.
In the summer I love the sun.
In the fall I love the falling leaves.
They keep falling, one by one.

In the winter I love the flurries of snow.
There’s a magic in the air.
When you open your eyes and look around,
there’s beauty everywhere.

Winter and spring, summer and fall.
No matter the season, I love them all.
There’s always a reason to wake up and say,
“What a lovely season it is today!”

In the spring I love the flowers.
In the summer I love the sun.
In the fall I love the falling leaves.
They keep falling, one by one.

In the winter I love the flurries of snow.
There’s a magic in the air.
When you open your eyes and look around,
there’s beauty everywhere.

Winter and spring, summer and fall.
No matter the season, I love them all.
There’s always a reason to wake up and say,
“What a lovely season it is today!”

What a lovely season it is today!
What a lovely season it is today!
What a lovely season it is today!
What a lovely season it is today!
What a lovely season it is today!
What a lovely season it is today!
What a lovely season it is today!

[Frances McCarthy]

Rachel, for infants I really recommend the rocket mice – they are easy to make, safe to use and go up like a rocket.

Start collecting the milk bottles now and you’ll have a nice set for the autumn.

Different grocery stores have different thickness milk bottle plastic, so shop around if you can.

[Frances McCarthy]

Catherine,

I like the idea of the 2-d representation of constellation patterns. Some are more distinctive than others (the asterism of the Plough for example), so would be more straightforward.

A small favourite of mine is Delphinus, visible near Cyngus in the summer months. It is a distinctive diamond with a small tail.

It could be interesting to give the class the same sheet of randomly spotted paper (representing the stars) and ask them to compare the shapes that they chose to make constellations from.

[Frances McCarthy]

Hi Ciara,

you make a point about ” removing the pressure of needing a ‘right’ answer, ” that I frequently make in teacher training sessions.

Nobody ever got a Nobel Prize for knowing the answer before they started!

I advise putting on an air of a slight befuddlement when carrying out investigations — tell the children that last time you did this activity with a class the weather was different / the class chose to use XX  instead of YY and so YOU DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER. This means they aren’t trying to get the “right” / “teacher” answer.

With the jellies, the technique of getting fingerprints should be given to the children, they can then consider if they could improve the technique in some way and then go on to use the technique to tell them something new about fingerprints that they have predicted based on their understanding. It could be something simple like — does the size of a fingerprint depend on the size of the person (do tall people have big fingers?)….

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