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Eilis — how much fun! I did the vinegar and baking soda in small canisters with a teacher group at a face to face cpd – and after they had all left I couldn’t figure out what the small popping noises were… it was the left over bits reacting and then pushing the lids off!
Ashling – I like how you have planned for an older class to be used as a resource. They might work with your children on a next step – of “do more layers of clothing keep us warmer?”
Aishling – I once had a sheet with a bunch of stars all over it — and children could look for their own patterns on it. Can’t find it now ! ( I think I got it from a colleague and don’t have it saved online – but similar sheets can be made up easily enough). See this activity.
For an older class you could try: Personal Constellations
Angela – 2nd class are quite capable of making the star lantern – and they can choose either a known constellation, or make up their own pattern (either completely made up, or by connecting stars in their own patterns). The Plough from different angles needs a bit of fine motor skill. You definitely need to crumple the foil balls on a longer length of string, and then trim it down or pull it through the holes in the card to the correct length.
I love how you have planned to include the children’s own homes in this activity. And this has the bonus of reinforcing the children’s visual recognition of their own home.
I like the use of ICT – and if the google car has been by your area fairly recently it can work nicely.
Eilis – check carefully how you word:
act out this journey of the earth moving away or towards the sun over a yeAr
This is a common misconception for all ages – that summer is when we are nearer the Sun, and winter is when we are further away.
Seasonal change appears for 5th and 6th class, so we haven’t covered it in great detail, but see this video about seasonal change misconceptions, called A Private Universe.
Danika – I really like how you have based the design a Martian on the actual conditions of Mars.
When we thought the conditions were different (back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when some astronomers thought they saw Martian canals), there were newspaper reports on what the Martians were doing! Teacher article about this here.
Danika, I like how you have structured this activity to allow the children time to explore and play. The trigger story will get them wondering, and then they can investigate how to make the shadow move to different places around bear. The proportional bears from maths make a great addition to this activity.
Lyndsey, bear in mind that children in Infants are expected to:
identify and discuss the sun, the moon and stars
so keeping it simple as you have outlined is the key. As the module has described — the spherical nature of the Moon >> spherical nature of the Earth, so it is a great introduction.
Great fact Danika — I love the fact that the Moon is lit up by the Sun – and the crazy thing is that Moon rock is naturally quite dark — it if was as shiny as a mirror is, the Moon would be insanely bright in the sky!
Ashling – have you seen the author enthusiastically reading the story?
Claire – having the teacher think out loud is a great way to model and make explicit the thinking skills that you are trying to develop.
I agree with you about the alien passport — it’s great.
Emma – the way you have planned your questions will help the children bring their science understanding to this imaginative activity. Nice stuff.
Claire – that art is lovely. A similar project was run by Deirdre Kelleghan – called Deadly Moons. She describes it in this article and you can find the images at this link.
