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Rachel – thanks for giving me the credit — but I think the system sometimes holds onto a post if there is formatting or links in it. I’ve had it tell me I was suspended from the whole forum once!! Luckily, the teachnet guys are around all the time and sort it out without us even having to ask 🙂
Rachel – the frozen glove and trying to melt it is a great activity. Particularly since there are so many factors that will affect the melting, the children really have to think which ones are actually affecting it. The glove that gets handled the most tends to melt pretty fast — because it is heated up by the children’s own hands!
Aisling – you can see a great visualisation that compares the planets on twitter: https://twitter.com/i/status/1519023430053818368
I really like how you have taken the great trigger: get teddy across the lake, and worked in a science investigation on floating, and a design and make with the best material too. It could be that the ‘best floater’ cannot be made into a boat shape – so its a great real world scenario.
Michael – the crater activity lends itself to a wide range of questions and predictions, which are essential for children’s learning in an inquiry approach.
Note that phases of the Moon are not part of the primary curriculum, so keep the emphasis on the light from the Sun that is lighting up the Moon and how the Moon itself is casting shadows that stop us seeing all of the side that is facing us.
Eve, is there a particular science emphasis that you would include in this topic? Child centred inquiry, as supported by the DPSM ESERO Framework for Inquiry should give the children a chance to pose questions, make predictions based on their science understanding and then test out their understanding with an investigation.
The Space Centre could have a requirement to be strong/ or light weight / or have windows … and then the children could work with different materials and explain why they would be suitable or not, before building the station.
Shona – the NASA Moon overview is superb: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/overview/,
great images, all in one place. Thanks for reminding me of it.
Catherine – the tactile Moon is lovely to create — and could be done as a group project if you printed the templates out using “create poster” setting on your printer, in this screen shot I made the image 400% bigger and this produces 12 separate bits of the Moon for the children to work on. If you change the % you can get a different number of sections.
Michael – the ESERO activity 48 – How Far Can You Jump was written for 3rd/4th class children, and can be a nice stimulus for inquiry learning. The children could carry out their own inquiry about the different distances that the children in the class could jump – and perhaps simulate the effects of a larger gravity by holding something really heavy when they try to jump.
Aoife- this is a great design and make activity, ‘building’ on this Design a Bridge from primaryscience.ie. Here, the prediction part of carry out the investigation becomes Plan, and they can explain what they know about different materials and choose from them to make their bridge.
If you choose to make available only the materials around the classroom, then it might just be a paper bridge, and then the design of how the paper is folded/taped becomes more important.
Aoife – I tried shadow plays with a group of 8-10 year-olds and they found it more difficult than I had expected. I thought that using nursery rhymes, with the story given to them would help and images that they might use – but they got absolutely sidetracked by tiny details of the shadow puppets and it took forever!!
We had made up a shadow theatre, with a sheet over a large cardboard frame so that they could place the puppets between the light and sheet and we could view it from the front: https://youtu.be/nK4d9g9WQUU
Ailis, there is a lovely bank of images of the planets in this ESA resource- Our Solar System – Journey to other celestial objects | Teach with space PR01,
and a video with ESA’s mascot Paxi: https://youtu.be/mibxJwpennU
Children could be asked to describe what they see in terms of size, colour, shapes, as well as naming the planets.
Ailis, I like how you have given a specific context, and used a waterproof material to make the house. An extension activity might be to explore ways in which to make something waterproof. Children could explore a combo roof – a strong material, covered with a light weight waterproof material – and discuss how housing uses waterproof on the outside, and strong on the inside.
Sharlene – can you share the link to the video? -there are lots out there called “Fun with Magnets”
I’m thinking about where I find magnets at home — mostly on the fridge, on the sliding door at my Dad’s front screen door (in Canada – not an Irish thing!), on my son’s wooden train sets to link the carriages together, inside the radio (to make the speaker move) … what would you expect the children to come up with?
