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What a comprehensive lesson plan Laura – I like how you broke it down to cover the whole week. There’s so much to cover in this topic, across multiple parts of the curriculum, and doing it like this can really reinforce learning as they are reminded of the planets every days.
I really like how you phrased your explanation for what floats as ‘things that are heavy for their size’. Density is of course a difficult concept and not something they need to learn at that age, but simply saying heavy objects sink and lighter objects float can be very misleading. Well done!
Rockets are great for engaging children and will make a very fun Space Week I’m sure – what type would you make with them? Straw, balloon, etc..
Wow Fionnuala, what a great connection to have! Your students are very lucky – I’m sure many of the other teachers doing this course envy you.
For Space Week we run a programme called ESERO Space Goes to School where we connect space industry professionals with classes across the country for a video call about their careers. You can register your interest here: http://www.spaceweek.ie/for-organisers/for-teachers/space-speaker-in-your-classroom/
Stellarium is so great – if you have access to tablets in your classroom, it can even be downloaded as an app which might be useful for group work too.
This sounds like a really lovely lesson for infants Clara. I like how you mention using spatial language to direct the children where to put their stars – that’s a nice touch.
Nice lesson Alison – it would be even more visually effective if you could use ice and see which one melts faster, but I know it can be hard to keep ice frozen in a school setting.
Alison – be careful with your wording on this. Stars don’t ‘come out’ when it’s dark, we can just see them once the Sun goes down!
Hi Aisling, planting seeds is such a fun lesson. Can I ask what you mean by a ‘sun helper’, is that a lamp for plants?
Aisling this is wonderful! It’s so great to see how these lessons can be so easily adapted to suit the specific needs of students without compromising on learning.
Thanks for sharing those links Aileen. It’s always good to hear first hand experience on what teachers think have worked well before!
I love asking children where the stars are during the daytime, such a great question for testing their understanding of space. Nice lesson Ailbhe!
Nice lesson Jocelyn. It could be nice to let the kids discover how moon phases work themselves – a simple way to do this would be to get one person to stand holding a torch up high, acting as the Sun, and have other children stand next to it holding a ball to represent the Moon. You can use cheap styrofoam balls with a lollipop stick stuck into them to hold it by. Then the children hold up their ‘moons’ high and spin around in a circle observing it. When their back is to the Sun, the Moon should be lit up, as they rotate they will see shadows creeping in, just like the Moons phases, until they are standing facing the Sun and no part of the Moon they are looking at is lit up.
Great work Kelly. I really like how you were able to adapt lesson this so well to your classes needs. The sensory bin sounds great, and how you can still link it to maths so well with the sorting and counting is very nice.
Nice work Kirstin – I would recommend doing both the indoor and outdoor shadow activities even if you do get a nice sunny day. It’s good to show that the Sun isn’t the only light source that creates shadows, that our artificial lights can do it too, and to note any differences in the shadows, like intensity. Do you know of any good picture book/song about shadows that you could use to close the lesson?