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Jamie – what a great idea– seasons across the world are quite different – some areas have dry / rainy instead of the 4 seasons we think of as standard.
Julieanne- what a nice activity on our locality – so much maths, recording, collecting data… Making the connection to weather and shelter is great. There is an ESA resource that builds on this, which could be an extension activity later in the year.
Ashling — introducing simple fair testing to Infants can be done with this activity. For fair testing the children need to consider which different factors affect the mouse jump, and then only change one at time when they compare the heights the mouse moves.
Since the bottles are all different (they have different shapes, sizes, bottle opening, made of different materials…), treat ‘the bottle’ as a variable and only look into each ‘bottle variable’ if the children want to extend the activity.
Providing lots of different bottles means more scope for exploration, but doesn’t make the test fair or not.
Aishling – I’m glad to hear that you would recommend your school take part in Space Week – don’t forget to register your event(s) at http://www.spaceweek.ie/add/
Teresa – it is great to hear from teachers about their own experiences with these activities — and the way the children had more questions and were able to answer them with a little more materials is so much the heart of science learning by inquiry.
Fiona – sounds like a great plan – be sure the register it as an event on spaceweek.ie!
The story Roaring Rockets is cute – but see my earlier comment about the science in it!
Gravity boots are not a thing. They don’t “grip the ground and stop you floating off.” There is gravity in space, micro-gravity is what you experience when your space craft is moving at the same speed as you — much like you jumping up in a lift just as it starts to go down — you fall down with the lift and it feels as if you are weightless – but gravity is still pulling you down
Lyndsey – you may find some of the online resources we look at in module 4 useful for images of constellations.
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.
Karen – I’m glad rocket mouse is a hit with you! Planning possible extensions usually means having extra material – and size of opening is one that is pretty straightforward. I save every milk bottle in my house- they all go into work!
John, this is a very clear outline on the seasons and clothing. Would you also link explicitly to temperature, and how a sunny day in summer is warm, but a sunny day in winter is cooler, even though it is still sunny?
This would be setting the scene for later work on seasons.
John – what inquiry questions might the children explore?
I suggest that you let the children make and play with the rockets, so that they can see how they work, then you can model “I wonder….” questions that they might further investigate.
The I wonder questions might be silly — I wonder if the red balloon will go further than the green balloon…but should act a springboard for the children to wonder and ask their own questions that they then explore.