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Hi Teresa – you might share this with your son: https://www.esa.int/kids/en/learn/Our_Universe/Planets_and_moons/Venus
and sulphur compounds are the ones that make that nasty eggy smell.
see also this article about the smell of some other planets: https://www.science.org.au/curious/space-time/smells-space-planets
This link should work for you Mary: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_jB5a664Qe5SNNcrGrZCLssZqP-RyruA/view?usp=sharing
Holly -resources in Irish can be very hard to find. SpaceWeek has some in Irish, and our YouTube channel has a handful of videos, which are produced in March each year – https://youtu.be/UTfWwYJPHWc
In our European project PolarStar we had some material translated, so you can find powerpoints and activity sheets that you might be able to adapt for your class. See for example: https://polar-star.ea.gr/content/solar-system-astronomy-irish
Mary – the little book of planets is designed to go with the song – it has the same lyrics as the video. You may want to hold it in reserve, or use it in a different way. Please do feel free to edit it as needed. I have a microsoft publisher version if you are able to access that version for editing – let me know if you’d like me to send it to you or create a link for you to download it.
thanks for sharing the video links – I love finding new songs about the planets. This autumn it will be quite easy to see Jupiter and Saturn when it gets dark in September/October/November/December and at Christmas-time we’ll even be able to see Mercury and Venus as well. This will make news, so I’d suggest trying to include Planets as a theme before Christmas, or straight afterwards.
Katie – could you time this to let the children observe the Moon during school time? The 3rd quarter phase of the Moon is visible in the morning, and in September at 3rd quarter it is particularly high in the sky at its highest, so easy to see.
The Moon can be seen easily without binoculars or telescopes – and Stellarium can be used to show a Zoomed in view of the Moon for those possibly cloudy days!
Ruth – you have connected across so many curriculum areas, great stuff. Remember that for SESE Geography infants need only to “identify and discuss the sun, the moon and stars ” so integration with other curriculum over a broad topic like “The Planets” is perfect.
Don’t forget to have a count-down to launch when playing the planets hoolahoop game!
Welcome Ruth, there are plenty of other Senior Infants teachers here, so please do look around the forums for lots of ideas and shared experiences.
The water in the stem of two different plants is a nice demo – how will you stretch out the children’s learning? Will they have the chance to wonder and ask their own questions about this? Could they try different lengths or widths of celery and see if the red colour moves differently?
Inquiry should give the children an opportunity to predict what might happen based on their science understanding — so I’d demo this, then let them explore further depending on the questions they have.
There is nothing worse than a class saying ” I get it, I get it” when you ask them if they have any questions — a child that has understood something really well will always have more questions.
A nice way to demonstrate how the earth rotates causing difference shadows would be to pair the class up and get the children to stand and the other outline the shadow that it casts. This activity can then be repeated in the afternoon from the exact same spot. the shadow outline or shape should have changed indicating how the earth moves and rotates
Do you have a nice area in the school grounds where you can do this? Even drawing the children’s attention to the position of the Sun at different times of day can help them to understand that the Sun appears to move across the sky.
I like to ask schools – which way do the windows in your classroom face? Do you get the Sun in the mornings? (east) in the afternoons? (west) not at all? (north).
Deirdre — I’d definitely show possible bridge designs from https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/design_a_bridge.pdf,
and an extension could ask the children to design a totally different type of bridge — and compare does it work as well as the others.
I think an important part of the lesson is giving lots of opportunities for children to ask questions and also provide questions that they can explore and investigate themselves.
I 100% agree with you on this Barbara. The key focus of inquiry learning for science is for the children to wonder and question how the world works – and to test out for themselves if it does work they way they think it works.
