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We have also never had an organised ‘Space Week’. I think it would be amazing to do this as a whole school as there are so many fantastic resources available.
My class for next year have a big interest in rockets so I would definitely use the “Rocket Mice” experiment for an Aistear station.
I would begin this experiment during Aistear by leaving the equipment (empty bottle, sticky tape and rocket mouse template) to provoke the children and let them question what we could do with these resources. After we have made the rocket mouse, I would ask the children to predict what will happen when the bottle is squeezed. We would then conduct the experiment, letting each child test what happens and question how the mouse is moving up and down again? We would experiment with different sizes and shapes of bottles and record any differences. The children could experiment with how high they can make the rocket mouse fly – keeping record of which rocket mouse flew the highest.
I really like this activity because it is also a simple experiment for children to recreate at home and share with their families.
I would choose a lesson about ‘Animals in the Cold’. I teach Infants and we always cover this topic in the Winter. I have always found that the children are so intrigued by animals from colder countries. I usually just focus on penguins but last year I had a child who had a huge interest polar bears so we looked at both animals from the Artic and Antarctic regions. It gave us a great opportunity to compare animals from both regions. Animals in the Cold is great topic to cover for Aistear. I have often put mini animals into ice cubes and have the children free the animals during play time. This has been something that was so simple to plan and gives the children great enjoyment when finding ways to free the animals. This has often lead to a conversation about how the ice would melt if the Artic Regions had warmer weather and how some of the animals would not survive the warmer weather.
I had never heard of Milo and Marvin but it sounds like these characters could really capture the children. I will definitely be looking into using this resource in the future.
This sounds like such a fun and exciting activity for children. The variety of resources available to the children really allows them to express their own creativity when designing an alien.
As an Infant teacher, the activity set that I would choose is Space and Aliens. I find that the mystery of this topic always excites and engages children and this make it a great theme for Aistear/role play.
I would use the story “Alien’s Love Underpants” as a hook to get the children’s attention. Before reading the book, I would tell the children the name of the book but cover the front cover to build the suspense. I would ask the children thought provoking, open ended questions such as “what do you think aliens look like?”, “do you think they wear clothes?”, “what kind of clothes would an alien wear?”. I would then read the story to the children with a focus on the illustrations. This is a funny and detailed book and I feel that the children would be thoroughly engaged.
I would link this story to a cross-curricular Maths and art lesson by having the children create their own alien with underpants using 2D shapes. This gives the students the freedom to use their own imagination and creativity to design an alien with whatever shapes and materials they imagine an alien to look like.
As a follow up, I would read the story “Alien’s Love Dinopants” which is equally as funny and engaging as “Alien’s Love Underpants”.
I have previously used torches to make shadows. It is such a simple activity and the children are always amazed that they can create shadows and shapes with their own bodies!!
The activity set that I would choose from this module is The Planets. As I am carrying my previous class, I am already aware that some of them have a keen interest in the planets and I feel that is a topic that we can really delve into some more in Senior Infants.
Trigger: The Planet Song. My class love to sing and dance and I think this song would hook them as it is so catchy. It is also a simple song to learn and contains simple information about the planets.
I would begin this lesson by questioning the children’s previous knowledge on planets – what planet do we live on? Do you know the names of any planets? Is there any information you can tell me about different planets? etc. After listening/learning The Planet Song, the children should be able to name some planets and tell me something simple about them.
After a brief discussion about the different planets, we would watch a video about why Earth is the best planet for survival i.e, it is not too close/far away from the sun and the importance of this on human survival. We would end this lesson by playing The planet game – the yellow hoop is the sun, the surrounding hoops are the planets, listen to prompts and jump into the correct planet.
A follow up lesson could be an art lesson where children choose a planet and make it using a paper plate and marble paint. We could then order the planets closest to the sun to furthest, again, showing why Earth is in the best location for human survival.
Hi, my name is Jessica Markey and I am a Junior Infant teacher in a DEIS Junior school. I have been an infant teacher for the past two years. I decided to do this course to expand my knowledge on space and hopefully use this new understanding of space in my current teaching position. My favourite fact about space is that it is completely quiet.
An inquiry based activity that I would like to do with my Junior Infants is ‘Storm in a Glass’. I have done this experiment with older children (SI, FC and SC) and think it would be a great hands-on activity for an Aistear based lesson.
The trigger for this lesson would be a previous Literacy lesson about the book ‘One Stormy Night’ and a follow up lesson geared towards Winter/Weather.
Throughout my years of teaching, I have seen how children question or often wonder where rain comes from or why is there more/less rain on different days or in different areas. I would begin this lesson by showing the children a wet sponge and tell them to pretend that the sponge is a cloud. I would tell them to notice that by adding more water to the sponge, more water comes out. This would give the children more of an idea of what happens when it rains more – the cloud is bigger so more rain falls. We would then move onto a glass or clear container filled with 3/4 water. We would create a ‘cloud’ using shaving foam. I would ask thought provoking questions such as “what do you think will happen if I add water to the cloud?”, “what would happen if I now added more water?” Eventually, the children should be able to identify what happens if we add more water or “rain”.
I think this is a brilliant hands-on and messy water activity for young children.
