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Hi Séan,
the video to use for gravity on the Moon is the astronauts dropping the hammer and the feather:
https://youtu.be/oYEgdZ3iEKA?si=Jhe6jrKU54uqKZc8
there is a BBC article that has a bit more about it and includes the transcript: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/terrific-scientific/articles/zd9r2sg
Well, in my left hand, I have a feather. In my right hand, a hammer. And I guess one of the reasons that we got here today was because of the gentleman named, Galileo a long time ago, and made a rather significant discovery about falling objects and gravity fields. And we thought that, where would be a better place to confirm his findings than on the moon? And so, we thought we would try it here for you, as the feather happens to be appropriately a falcon feather for our Falcon. And I’ll drop the two of them here, and hopefully they’ll hit the ground at the same time. How about that? Mr Galileo was correct in his findings.
Marguerite –
Isn’t it great to get so many suggestions!
you’ll find a lot of the books listed in the summary docs I make each year from teachers’ suggestions:
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SpaceWeekJunior-1.pdf
http://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SpaceWeekJunior2022.pdf
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/SpaceWeekJunior_2023.pdf
for Aoife and Séan – a way to see if the children can conceptualise the Earth as a sphere is to use the ESA ISS Primary education kit, the section on Raindrops keep falling on my head, pages 12 and 13
Blathnaid,
thanks for sharing the story suggestion – I love it.
https://youtu.be/6ZWLn2WMIzA?si=yNQ60gk_FIMSLAv1
If you want the balloon rocket to be more “spacey”, tie one end of the string to the ceiling – and it then launches up.
I find that very thin string is needed, or even better, use a strong fishing line that is smooth and strong. Get a balloon pump or three as well!
Fintan,
it would be possible to extend this into a deeper inquiry investigation if the children used the initial Vaseline demonstration as the starting point, then explored their own questions about it :
does it make a difference how much Vaseline? Can we put something under the Vaseline so that we can see if it really gets wet (rather than trying to feel it on a Vaseline soaked hand!) does water wash off the Vaseline eventually?
for each of those a small group could make their prediction, then check if they were right. If you have a family with a pet, you might ask them if their dog/cat/hamster could visit and you might check if the fur does the same thing as the Vaseline etc.
Aoife,
I demonstrate day and night in a portable planetarium & I find when I ask young children “why do we have day and night?” I get answers that reference personal activities:
ie. “we get night so that we can go to sleep.”
I’d ask “how does day and night happen” & ask them to explain with a torch and globe / making predictions as appropriate, and if they are confident the next step can be to look at seasonal changes – but then you are pushing into the older class content from SESE Geography.
Infants should: • recognise the difference between day and
night.1st/2nd
• identify the sun, the moon, stars, day and night
• develop familiarity with the spherical nature of the Earth.3rd/4th
• observe, describe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and the changing lengths of day and night during the seasons
5th/6th
• recognise that the Earth, its moon, the sun, other planets and their satellites are separate bodies and are parts of the solar system
• develop a simple understanding of the interrelationship of these bodies, including day and night and seasonal movementsKatie,
I can see how they might follow how hot water or heating affects ice, but do they have much experience with salt or sugar? As a Canadian I am familiar with using rock salt on ice in winter – but only vaguely recall from high school chemistry what is going on about it melting.
So in this case, their predictions will be based on their everyday experience – they know that rock salt is used on roads, but sugar isn’t – so they might predict one will affect it differently than the other.
I think using heat to melt the ice will be easier for them to make predictions that are based on understanding – as they explore how heating a solid turns it into a liquid. Ice is great since it will actually melt in a classroom – and then they might look at solids that melt at higher temperatures and see how heat affects them. Butter is probably the easiest solid that melts at those slightly hotter temperatures.
Rohana,
your Aistear area sounds lovely – have you any pics that you can share?
For an older cohort I created this resource on Humans in Space – and it would fit so nicely with this year’s World Space Week Theme of “living in space.”
Do you offer different size styrofoam balls? In Cork you can get them at Cork Art Supplies or at the Range.
Eveleen,
there are so many resources available at Curious Minds – I like the one you have chosen.
With just a little shift they can be used to really promote children’s inquiry learning — so where the guide suggests “Investigate does the number of rubs make the balloon ‘stick’ to the wall longer?” You can ask the children to share what they predict will happen – and why – and then they can determine if what they thought would happen actually did,
Since static electrical effects also depend on the weight of the object they are trying to affect, as well as the surface area, they might get some unexpected results if they have different balloons. This can lead to discussion about fair testing.
Siobhan,
do you then try to blow the house down? With the storm that came through on Sunday night some of the children might have had experience of garden items being blown away (I’m at a girl guide camp this week – they had lots of tents blown away!)
You might show them this article from Storm Eowyn (if you judge that this won’t frighten them)
https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2025/0124/1492635-storm-munster/
Louise,
I like to show the SpaceX rocket launches – since very often something goes wrong and they blow up! I emphasize that these are tests, and that SpaceX has the philosophy of build quickly – test to destruction – then fix the thing that broke.
This can be useful with children who want to make the rocket “perfect” before doing any testing, and so run out of time. I encourage them to be more SpaceX-y and just have a go!
I ask them if they see anything odd in this video …. and do they think this is going to turn out good or bad… then we see!
This UNAWE activity might suit your plan.
or the templates on page 30 & 31, which starts with swapping land and ocean, then designing your own Earth:
https://www.unawe.org/static/archives/education/pdf/Earthball_booklet.pdf
Note – the rest of the booklet is for older children.
Hi Marguerite,
the solar eclipse activity had a glitch when produced, so please use this version which has been modified.
There will be a fabulous solar eclipse in August 2026 — better the further south you are in Ireland, but amazing from everywhere. Best of all in totality, which is across northern Spain.
Emma,
you’ve described some lovely engaging activities that children might undertake around the theme of “What’s in Space?”
I sometimes start a unit by asking participants to draw (as a group) – what is in space. They then can add to the drawing as we cover more material.
Within the Inquiry framework from this module, you might want to consider how the children can investigate — how they can identify a starter question that they can predict with their current understanding, then investigate to verify.
A possibility might be around “Have you ever seen the moon or stars at night?”
Use the material from ESERO Light and Dark to let children explore if they can see objects in the dark without light – and this can lead to the idea that the Moon is lit up by the Sun, the Sun gives out its own light.
From exploration the children might make up their own ideas about why you can see objects and test them out in the ‘dark’.
