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Leanne,
that sounds like great fun, trying to balance the initial push to give enough speed that friction will slow them down to stop at a given point.
Nice possible links to stopping distances for cars in the dry vs the wet, and lots of opportunity to look at how well the wheels turn on the vehicles.
I’d take care that the children realise that once they have pushed their car, it will keep moving unless another force (in this case friction) acts on it. I’d consider trying to make a really slippy table (furniture polish) and let them explore the frictionless world. It is all to easy for them to conclude that they have to ‘keep pushing’ to keep the car going. In fact, they have to keep pushing to overcome friction.
Hilary,
I’m interested in knowing how you structure Aistear in your classroom, and glad that you feel the Curious Minds ESERO Framework for Inquiry has similarities.
The fact that space is dark has been used as evidence that the Universe must have had a beginning! See this answer to “Why is space black?”
Deirdre,
bridge building as a design and make is a lovely way to let the children bring their understanding of materials and forces into play. I’m glad that you think it worth explicitly showing different styles of bridges and I would suggest that you offer a relatively weak material as the bridge surface (paper is good) so that they have to consider how to support it. The child who brings in a plank of wood for a toy truck to move over hasn’t really engaged to the fullest extent in the activity!
You can find the Curious Minds version of Make a Bridge in English and Irish, I’d expect the Irish one will soon be updated.
Mark,
the prompt for this could be pictures of icebergs in salt water — where the ice has obviously not melted. If they can make the connection between that visual and the activity, then they will be connecting to their science understanding. I suppose children could look at the movement of the hotter/ cooler water by watching the colour from the ice move through the water. That would push this very much to 5th/6th class as they are looking at heat transfer.
Here is an article that then connects this to oceans and melting icebergs.
Aoife,
thanks for your clear outline of how you have used a popular story with your class.
There are some additional related activities here: https://www.science-sparks.com/activity-ideas-aliens-love-underpants/
Aoife,
you’ve added some lovely touches that integrate several activities and build on the children’s understanding of weather and suitable clothing. Teddy’s personal shopper helping to decide the best coat is a nice inclusion!
On a much grimmer note, there are people who have suffered frostbite attempting to cross from the US to Canada in winter, so lack of clothing really is an issue. I wouldn’t necessarily share this with the children!
Susanne,
I did not know that ad, but mentioned it to a (younger) colleague who instantly knew it!
Full Moon, Half Moon, Total eclipse!
https://youtu.be/mQJutuutRII?si=b5k716n34PXoqzti
Aoife,
you have commented on a key aspect of inquiry type lessons – the children will be verifying and applying their understanding – so they need to have had some experience of the topic to have something to build on. In this case, they had examined (or explored) fingerprints in advance, so were building on their expectation that different people have different fingerprints to investigate the theft of the sweets.
Erika,
in this course we are specifically referring to the Curious Minds ESERO Framework for Inquiry. Using that framework, your suggested lesson plan for a 2nd class works really well.
Children will engage with an interesting scenario as a prompt: “What would it take to live on Mars”
They would then wonder and explore “How would we obtain water and oxygen? What would we eat? How would we protect ourselves from radiation?”
They can define their own starter question based on their interests and use secondary resources to investigate. If you would rather treat this as a design and make, then they can explore what is needed, plan a Martian habitat, make it and then evaluate their making.
Or they could Share: Interpreting the data / results.
And, as you have stated, reflect on their learning.
Hi Amy,
welcome to the course. There is a wealth of shared experiences in the forum posts, so please do take the time to browse. You are bound to find useful suggestions and recommendations.
Julie,
by asking them to make a “working” rocket, that adds a whole level of complexity. The fizzy tablet rocket with a vitamin tube is probably the best basis for this, and children would have to consider the weight of the materials they add, the aerodynamics (since this rocket will be launched from Earth).
A larger possibility is the fizzy drink bottle water rocket, but now these bottles have recycling value, this may be less likely.
https://youtu.be/UspRESye6JY?si=-HQ6s_M9LTtVa_TN
There is a commercial kit that can be used, I have one called Water Rokit. Get a decent bicycle pump, not one of the smaller one hand ones.
Hi Julie,
magnets are a favourite of mine as well. I find it is vital to give the children time to play with the magnets and notice the patterns in what is attracted to a magnet and what is not. Since many metals that are easily found in a classroom contain iron, some children may erroneously conclude that all metals are attracted to magnets. I find it useful to have some coins, tin foil and some jewellery (silver or gold) to offer for testing.
Once children have played, ask them to generalise what they have found out (ie Only metals go to the magnet) – and from that make a starter question (Do all metals go to magnets?) and then investigate.
A fun next step is to make ‘bugs’ from pipecleaners (that have steel in their centres) and make a bug maze. Use the magnets under the table to pull the bug along the maze.
Caoimhe,
numbers related to space are literally astronomical! A frequently shared “space fact” is that 1 millions Earths would fit into the Sun.
This is actually pretty easy to demonstrate — by putting a scale Earth next to a scale Sun on the IWB (I use helioviewer.org, which can easily generate screenshots).
Show that a 1cm Earth takes up a tiny bit of a 1m Sun (I enlarge the image and then get a cm rule and a m stick to show the size of the image).
Ask – what size would it be if we had 100 Earths this way (x) 100 Earths this way (y) and 100 Earths up (y) – and form a cube from 3 meter sticks.
100 * 100 * 100 = 1 million!
With your spatter stars, the children could be prompted to compare rich star regions where there are a lot of stars, to more sparsely populated areas, and this is actually the case in the Milky Way – there are places with more stars, and places with fewer.
Carolann,
Please note that the Moon can be seen at night some of the month – the Full Moon is only visible at night since it rises at sunset and sets and sunrise. All other phases can be seen in the daytime as well as when it is dark.
Today’s Moon is visible right now, in the west.
Linking to maths and shapes is a great way to include the Moon in your teaching.The surface of the Moon and how we weren’t too sure what it is like is an interesting bit of space history. You can read about this here: https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/moon-before-we-knew
