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Leah,
the lovely astronomy side to Moonbear’s shadow is the changing direction of the Sun over the course of the day. When I have carried this out with children I have taken them outside first to to see where the Sun is in the sky – we have noted it and it is usually in the south -east (I start my workshops at 10am). We check again when we finish the whole visit (at 1pm) and it is in the south.
When we set up the Moonbear’s shadow fishing pond (a blue bit of paper with some paper fish), I have a compass drawn nearby with the cardinal directions. I ask them — what time of day have you made it? Is the Sun shining from the east – then it is early morning… etc.
Laura,
There is an outline of the blubber glove here: https://greenschoolsireland.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Green-Schools_Blubber-Experiment.pdf
I’ve only seen it made with solid fat, how well does the coconut oil version work? I’m not familiar with coconut oil, but it seems to be a solid up to 25 degrees, so wouldn’t it melt when hands touch it?
Would you share the Inquiry Framework that we discussed in Module 1 as you structured the stations? The scenarios can act as prompts, and the children should be encouraged to ask their own questions, make predictions based on their understanding and then carry out their investigation.
So blubber glove station could have instructions on how to make a blubber glove, but the children can explore for themselves if:
1. Does thicker blubber mean my hand can last longer in the cold water?
2. Does thicker blubber make it harder for my hand to move (they’d have to work out how to measure this)
3. Does vergetable shortening blubber work as well as coconut oil blubber…
Robyn,
I’m curious about
2. Literacy: Explore heart words and CVCC or CCVC words around the theme of space – word to picture matching, sentence building, decodable readers around the theme, spelling activities.
Would this have a space ‘cover’ – or be words that are linked to the theme of space? I could find plenty of visuals on Twinkl that had planets or rockets with everyday words – but not a resource that used words about space.
I asked Chatgpt (give me a list of words that use ccvc or cvcc about the theme of space)- but it doesn’t really know its consonants from its vowels:
Sure! Here are some words related to space that follow the CCVC or CVCC structure:
CCVC Words:
Star
Moon
Mars
Plan (short for planet)
Glow (from “glow” of stars or planets)CVCC Words:
Dust (space dust)
Rock (space rock or asteroid)
Moon (assuming a slightly looser interpretation as it phonetically can be “mo-on”)
Warp (as in warp speed)
Ring (planetary rings)
These words adhere to the requested phonetic patterns and are related to the theme of space.Which shows the issue with generative AI – it can rearrange words in a general sense, but has to be taken with many pinches of salt!
Niamh,
would this list be of use?
Don’t bother listening to the Blur song – it’s a list of star and moon names.
Laura,
can you say more about how
We would then use a flashlight in a darkened room to simulate how stars twinkle in the night sky. This visual representation will help to solidify their learning and makes the concept more tangible.
would show stars twinkling? The demonstration I have come across for stars twinkling (which is an atmospheric phenomena) is very much for upper second level since it deals with refraction:
https://stardate.org/teaching-tool/hot-air
For vivid images I would suggest Astronomy Picture of the Day (which we meet in Module 4) – have you other sources you would use?
Hilary,
what a really nice outline of Space activity for an infant class.
Is the Sea of Tranquility by Mark Haddon?
Rocket mice are great, and to control the noise a little bit I would consider having only a few launch bottles out at a time, and encouraging the children to work in 3s, with a launcher, a safety officer and a measurer roles that can rotate.
John,
How much fun! It sounds like a great plan, with something for everyone.
Did you know that there is a junior school in Galway that celebrates Space Week every year by launching at least one type of rocket per day.
You can see what they have done at their website: http://junior.renmoreschool.com/Space/Index.html
Kathy- the beauty of the inquiry method of learning science is that the teachers is NOT the fount of all knowledge. You can put on an air of slight uncertainty in these activities as you encourage the children to make predictions using:
I think that XXX will happen if we do YY because…
You can help them phrase their thinking, and challenge if they are predicting one thing that is totally at odds with why they think it will happen, but you (and they) don’t need to know the “Right” answer before you start.
So, for forces, a child might say:
I think a big toy car won’t go as far when it goes down a ramp, because it takes more push to throw a heavy ball… and then you test this.
Leanne,
that sounds like design and make perfectly in action. Annoying for you, but learning that “many of the rockets had to be re-stuck ” if not stuck enough the first time is spot on.
Katie,
to use the inquiry framework that we have referred to in this course with a research task needs just a slight bit of tweaking in the investigate section.
The children can still be engaged through a suitable prompt (What is it like on Mars? – show an image of Mars from https://www.google.com/maps/space/mars/)
They can then share knowledge as they wonder and explore. From this sharing they can identify starter questions that are testable and give a prediction based on their understanding.
So, they might note that Mars in the image is all the same colour, so they might wonder about water on Mars, and does it have any oceans (which on Earth are blue). They might predict that there are no oceans on Mars right now, since none of the picture they can see is blue. They can then use the google Mars tool and zoom in to check if they are correct as the investigate section. Then they can share their findings.
Michelle,
do you have a set of day and night images? I know there are a few in the ESERO resource, and a quick google found me this set
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P7V_O0BlzTFsR7ERNR_osM7lC02nl3JnQS8Bhpl6FLE/template/preview
from https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/lessons/cycle-day-and-night
They come with an interesting observation, which is to be aware of cultural differences in times of eating. For example, people who observe Ramadan eat their dinner after sunset.
I’d recommend the Moon journal pages from Mayo Dark Sky Park: https://www.mayodarkskypark.ie/discover/the-moon/
and an overview of the phases each year can be found on the Moon Calendar from spaceweek.ie (this is last year’s stay tuned for next year’s you’ll find it on the for teachers page).
So if you want them to observe in the evening, start a few days after New Moon when they can see a crescent moving towards the 1st quarter Moon.
Dates of new Moon this year are September 2, October 2, November 1, November 30 and December 30.
International Observe the Moon Night is on September 14 this year.
Hi Leah,
dropping to make craters is a great inquiry activity, since the children can play with the equipment for a bit to get a sense of what is going on, then make a starter question with a prediction based on what they understand.
There is the Curious Minds Activity: https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/meteorites_activity.pdf
I make one change, since I keep the material around for my next visiting school – so I use different colour sand as the impact surface. This way I don’t have a food product hanging around all year. If you get sand from a local builder’s providers or hardware supplier, allow time for it to dry. The bags are often stored outside and the sand is too wet to flow when you first get it.
There is a nice ICT extension: https://down2earth.eu/impact_calculator/planet.html?lang=en-US
that lets you vary the mass, diameter, material of impactor and material of surface and then see the size of crater that gets created!
Grainne,
using scrap paper is a great way to implement this, since if you require each drop to be the same size paper, the children can really see the effects of air resistance without getting tangled up in the science around mass and weight.
Children can scrunch the paper, fold the paper, leave it flat, drop it sideways….
