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sanity is always important! I really like your suggestion of doing this in October/November, just as the need for coats is becoming more urgent.
Triona – I wonder if the children we teach are out this week looking for their shadows? Drawing around each others shadows is a lot of fun – but you have to work quickly – even 5 minutes shows a noticeable shift in the shadow.
Sinéad – great outline of an activity that includes students with additional needs – remember that these adaptations can be recorded in the column at the side of the DPSM ESERO Framework for Inquiry.
Sinéad – “<span style=”color: #163c42; font-family: ‘Hind Madurai’, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;”>to predict if astronauts see things differently in space depending on their position.”</span>
this issue was at the heart of our understanding of distances in the galaxy. When we look at stars, they appear to always be in the same relative position to each other – even when you view them in January, and again in June, when the Earth is on the opposite side of the Sun, 6 months later.
This was used to argue against a heliocentric model of the Universe — the stars didn’t appear move when we went around the Sun, so therefore we didn’t orbit the Sun!
It turns out that stars are much much further away than people thought – so the “parallax” is tiny, tiny, tiny!!!
What a nice site for videos: https://www.sciencekids.co.nz/videos/space.html
It can be hard to keep track of the good videos that you’d want to use in the year – do you have a way of tracking them – I tend to just book mark them, and then can’t find the one I want!!
Triona, I like how there is the possibility here for linking Geography and several strands of Science. This could easily lead (from the children’s questions and wonderings) to a range of inquiry investigations – about clothing, keeping warm / keeping cool / seasonal changes that can be observed.
Triona, this is a lovely cross-curricular activity, can you add more on how you could bring science inquiry into this for your Junior Infants? Is there part of the activity that lends itself to science investigation?
Treasa, what a lovely connection to materials that you have in the classroom, that the children are already familiar with. I like how you have connected seasonal change, different parts of the world, temperature and suitable clothing as well as animals!
Aoife — what a lovely look at the rocket mouse activity. I’d suggest plenty of bottles- children can get quite enthusiastic and the thicker walled plastic milk bottles do tend to crack.
I’d suggest only giving out a few bottles at a time — the “whack – launch” is pretty loud and if everyone is launching at the same time, then who is measuring how high it goes?
Hi Darragh – from experience, fair testing on this one is a bit tricky – so be prepared for discussions about “this one didn’t go as far as it should, because the cap came off early!”
I find that the plastic containers you use change after a few launches. The cap tends to come off much easier – maybe they get warmer from hands handling them? or they get wetter from the launches?
Best work around I have found is to try to have as many identical launchers as you can (the fizzy vitamin tablet tubes are ideal).
Rachel – I love the way you have linked across so much of the curriculum – and still have plenty of science (this is a science-ish course!). Great stuff.
Karen – may I share your great suggestions as part of this years “how to do space week with junior classes” ?
You can apply for a speaker to Zoom into your classroom with
http://www.spaceweek.ie/for-organisers/for-teachers/space-speaker-in-your-classroom/
this link will be updated with the space week speakers in late August, getting ready for space week in early October.