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Hi Lynn,
making a recycled space craft sounds fun. Your crew could also come up with a name for their mission. They could choose a famous place or a famous person to be their space craft. Or they could choose a space-theme name.
You can see the list of various missions here.
Thanks for sharing story suggestions Deirdre,
looks good for introducing the idea that planets can be quite different depending on their distance from their star.
We did a session on this with second level teachers as part of one of our teacher conferences with Dr Elizabeth Tasker – she added that in addition to the distance from the star, you need to consider what the planet is ‘wearing’ – as in, some planets have thick atmospheres, which keep heat in, and some have thin atmospheres which let heat out.
Louise,
this is a lovely way to structure a Science & Art activity with the framework for inquiry. May I share it with teachers in the end of course sharing document that I make each year?
I think that Science & arts would make a great theme.
Previous docs are at the spaceweek.ie site:
Space Week for Junior Classes, Space Week for Junior Classes & Aistear, Whole Week Plans for Junior Classes.
Hi Jennifer,
thanks for sharing your experiences with space week activities.
Sorry about the lack of pencils — the advice from SFI was to cut down on one off consumables and go to digital packs! (the Moon calendar can be printed off in house).
Hi Louise,
be careful in the discussion around
discuss weight plays a role on how fast things fall, but ultimately everything falls.
since the role of air resistance is tied up with this. Aristotle thought that the heavier an object was, the faster it would fall. This isn’t true, and Galileo found that out by doing experiments on objects going down ramps (the ramps meant that the objects went slow enough that he could measure their speed).
If there is no air, then all objects fall at the same speed. You can see this at this video from Brian Cox, or from the video of the astronauts on the Moon where there is no air.
Hi Lynn,
the checking if their predictions were correct is how children consolidate their own knowledge. With this type of activity I find it best to offer a demonstration of the procedure first, then they have some background to the science and can pose a further question that they can then check.
Hi Deirdre,
You can look at inquiry activities as both ‘science questions’ and as ‘design and make’ activities that use their own science understanding to inform the design process. As you have noted, it may take much longer than you have anticipated, so you may need to plan for practical maths as part of the activity to give you another aspect of the busy curriculum in the time.
I like how you included arts in stem – this is the current thinking about STEM & Arts.
Hi Claire,
welcome to this course and the world of Junior Infants! I think you will find the ideas and suggestions in the forum very useful – there are about 60 teachers so far in this course, so lots of sharing going on.
Your playful forces activity is spot on for the engage and wondering aspects of inquiry. Teacher modelling “I wonder…” can help the children find a question that they can answer with their toys.
They might think that lighter objects are easier to move (from throwing objects around) so may think that lighter objects will fall or roll down a ramp more easily — and so exploring that will let them develop their understanding of forces acting on heavier or lighter objects.
Baby clothes for teddy is genius! and if you get them donated by families, the children might actually be using the clothing they once wore! (laundered of course!)
Scientists as magicians is a great idea.
The orange naturally lends itself to the magic — it floats with the peel on, but when you make it lighter (by taking the peel off) it sinks.
This is so counterintuitive to a child who thinks something floats because of mass (rather than heavy for its size = density).
Lovely stuff Patrick – I think this in particular is super “They bring in their own objects to leave on the moon.” – you could link this to measures by giving a limit to the size or weight that was available in the space craft. There was a company that planned to take small items to the Moon, but the mission that it was on failed in January.
For Starry Night – my colleagues did a space art session on Van Gogh last year, you can find it at
It was a team effort. The first teacher had done this summer course years ago – she started it. Another teacher did this course online a few years back and added more. They said it was so popular with their DEIS1 school that they kept it.
I asked permission to share the images.
Ursula,
I’m going to nick your idea of using straws first. I often ask the children to get the mouse to move without touching it – and a child will usually blow on it, and then I go straight to wondering if the milk bottle could help us launch the mouse up…
Sean,
would you be able to use an activity like this with your older class? I wonder if the sensory aspect of it might be too much for some children with sensory issues. I once made slime with a class and had a child vomit from the experience, so I am always keen to let the children lead on how much they want to touch/squish and otherwise engage.
For younger children, the measuring and mixing is likely to be in broad capacity units – ie a spoon, rather than in detailed ml.
