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Eilis – I like how you have taken modelling first, then asked the children to use their model to predict real world behaviour- and then they can verify — absolutely the essence of learning science through inquiry!
Maura, great that you identified the needs of your class and planned active movement to suit them.
All this exploration and wondering can lead to specific questions that can be investigated, and those questions might come from the children, or from yourself – as you pick up on the discussions that they might be having as they explore and play.
Síle – this is a simple activity, but it is so effective. I was watching my shadow this morning – it was extremely long at sunrise, and I was thinking that in winter, with the later sunrise, this would be very effective to explore with children during school hours.
John – what activity on eclipses would you carry out? There is an ESERO activity for older classes that has the children model the Earth-Sun-Moon system. Just watch out for the small error on the names of the phases of the Moon (and bear in mind, phases of the Moon are not required in primary).
John – for a science inquiry activity for junior classes, the emphasis is very much on the children posing a question, predicting what they think the answer is, based on their own science understanding and then verifying that answer with a research or practical activity.
This discussion could form the exploration part of an inquiry – and then the children might explore how water being a liquid depends on the temperature at that place.
Emily – try to keep the emphasis on why the Moon looks like this – rather than learning the names of the various phases etc. Infants are expected to “identify and discuss the sun, the moon and stars” and 1st/2nd class “identify the sun, the moon, stars” and phases of the Moon appears in second level.
Séamus – you can use the simple picture from the ISS education kit to check that the children have really gotten the idea about gravity pulling everything into the planet. See page 12.
Hannah, you have planned an interesting hook for the children to explore and given them simple equipment that they can then use to answer and check their own questions — which is key in inquiry learning. Nice stuff.
Danika, I like how you have structured this activity to allow the children time to explore and play. The trigger story will get them wondering, and then they can investigate how to make the shadow move to different places around bear. The proportional bears from maths make a great addition to this activity.
Lyndsey, bear in mind that children in Infants are expected to:
identify and discuss the sun, the moon and stars
so keeping it simple as you have outlined is the key. As the module has described — the spherical nature of the Moon >> spherical nature of the Earth, so it is a great introduction.
Great fact Danika — I love the fact that the Moon is lit up by the Sun – and the crazy thing is that Moon rock is naturally quite dark — it if was as shiny as a mirror is, the Moon would be insanely bright in the sky!
Claire – that art is lovely. A similar project was run by Deirdre Kelleghan – called Deadly Moons. She describes it in this article and you can find the images at this link.
Darragh, I really like how you have based this on the children’s observations of the world around them! I travel to schools with our portable planetarium, and will often ask children which way their classroom faces– is it east/west/north/south. They often don’t know, so I’ll ask them: do they get the sunlight in the room in the morning (E), in the middle of the day (S), in the afternoon (W), or not at all (N)? Many of them haven’t ever thought through the changing position of the sun in the sky and how it affects the brightness of the room they are in!
I’ll also ask -which way does your bedroom / living room face? What time of day is it brightest in the room?
Julieanne – I like the engaging activity at the start — playing shadow tag is fun – and the children can learn by playing – they might notice that the shadow is only ever on one side of them, that the shadow touches them if they are standing on the ground, that the shadow is dark, and if your eyes are in someone else’s shadow, then you can’t see the Sun!
All of those could then be more formally explored in the classroom with torches.