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Is this the website?
https://www.sciencekids.co.nz/
Is this the static electricity activity?
I don’t find it easy to search – how do you find what you need?
Thanks for sharing Emma. It’s amazing how effective a black (bin bag?) background can be when sending a class to space!
Grace,
you’ve given a comprehensive list of possible activities for Aistear stations.
Do you have a bingo game ready made? Or would you create one with https://bingobaker.com/
This one has clothes and weather mixed, but could be modified I think.
https://bingobaker.com/view/6239146
Ciara,
have you particular games you like? I crash on the spaceship one, matching shapes is more my level!
https://www.esa.int/kids/en/Games/Milky_Way_Match
Orla,
the original idea behind the Discover Primary Science (now known as Curious Minds) was to promote hands on activities in the classroom for the new (at the time) Science Curriculum. The activities very much make a point of using every day materials that can easily be sourced. The awards of excellence were introduced to let schools get recognition for what they are already doing, but for schools that have received the awards multiple times, the latest Platinum tier really challenges schools to a greater STEM awareness across their communities.
As their website states:
The Platinum Award is a significant step up in terms of effort from a Gold Award. Entrants must choose an outcome at the beginning of the year, achieve that outcome and then demonstrate its impact.
Annual applications for the Platinum Award will be capped at 30 schools. Sign up early to avoid disappointment.
Hi Daire,
penny rocket looks to need a considerable time in a freezer and might be quite dangerous when it launches. Would you consider pop top instead?
Building a large version rocket is slightly touched on in this resource from Space Week.
which was inspired by this video:
great- there is such a wealth of suggestions and ideas in the forum – I hope the teachers who did this course in the first week stick their noses back in!
Aoife,
glad to know that the mice have been a hit -I do just love them.
I really like how you have planned for lots of discussion around:
we could discuss if there were ways to improve their rockets, what might they add to it or remove? How could they get it to go faster or slower? What makes the rocket stay on course? What propels their rockets? Could this be changed?
Somewhere I used to have a link to a video which showed a family doing rocket races and they found that the larger balloon was slower to get going, but went further, and the smaller balloon zipped off first but then ran out of air and stopped – so you could challenge your early finishers to test the effect of distance of race and how it interacts with size of balloon for determining who wins the race. Might include a mention of hare and tortoise!
Laura,
quite recently I have found children (particularly boys) very interested in Elon Musk and Space X. The Starship is currently being tested, so has launches quite often. Most recently in June
Test 5 is planned for August.
Michelle,
what a simple way to really encourage the children to keep going with a design. Once they know that the rocket will be built over time, they have so many reasons to keep adding to it and going back to it.
You could show them a time lapse of the ISS being built – it took years!
Lucy,
You have identified a nice set of activities that fit with your classroom context of very young children. You can use selected parts of the inquiry framework as you see fit – here I like the way you have provided the starter question
“When I pour water on which is best at soaking up the water/ best at staying dry?”
and have structured the activity so that the children can describe how different materials behave when water is poured over them. Could you have even smaller bits of each material that the children could place on a GOOD AT SOAKING UP card or on a BAD AT SOAKING UP? (or similar – the ideal would be an image like the one of the cat looking at the tub of water in ESERO 4)
I tried to use AI art to make what I was thinking of (my drawing skills are stick men!) but I didn’t quite get it. I asked for saucers (and got tea cups too!)
Sarah,
Your idea of
We could explore the planets here in more detail and after this study we would then decide which planet would best suit their alien.
seems to be a perfect way to link science content (facts about the planet) to the created alien and access some pretty high order thinking skills! The child who can say – Venus is really hot with acid rain, so the alien with the thick skin will do best because their skin will protect them (like a hippo) is doing brilliantly.
Ciara,
thanks for sharing such a lovely Space Week Plan – may I add it to my shareable lessons?
The Hippo to the Moon site has some additional activities, I really like the sheet of images for a child to retell the story
https://s22428.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-First-Hippo-on-the-Moon-Resources-2.pdf
Katie,
is there a particular story from the ones recommended here that you think will appeal to your class?
The reference picture I like for the solar system is this page:
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/
compare it to this one: https://www.esa.int/kids/en/learn/Our_Universe/Planets_and_moons/The_Solar_System_and_its_planets
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2014/08/Explore_our_Universe_poster which you can download and use.
You could add a nice reflection here on how much detail is needed to show a planet.