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A lesson for infants getting them to design and create their own alien.
I got ideas from the Blackrock observatory PDF. I would start the lesson off by reading Aliens love underpants. I have used this as a stimulus for lessons before and the kids love it. You could pause during the story and get the children thinking and talking about the aliens. Are they all the same? What colours, shapes, patterns can you see? If you met an alien, what might it look like?
I would then tell the children that they will be designing their own alien next and they can use ideas from the book, come up with their own unique design or whatever they would like.I would then give the children out a variety of materials such as playdough, pipe cleaners, pom poms, googly eyes, buttons, paper etc. They can decide to add their own features onto the alien. During the making, I would be walking around asking them questions about their aliens.
I would then get the children to present their alien and maybe tell the class a bit about it, detailing its name and make up a backstory about their planet. You could get them to write a sentence or two about their aliens if they were able.I like the way you would bring in sun safety in here because it is a hard thing for the kids to visually understand the importance of the beads changing colour
I would use the book, The Sun Thief as my introduction to the lesson. Throughout the reading of the story, I would get the class to predict what may happen if the sun disappeared. I would ask questions during the reading too like Why do we need the sun? How would we feel if there wasn’t any sunlight? Etc. This would create a discussion on the topic of the sun and shadows.
Once we had it read, we could then carry out a hands-on experiment using a torch to represent the sun and shining it onto different objects to see how light creates shadows. I would draw their attention to the fact that as the torch (sun) moves , the shadow changes, emphasising that the sun is its own source of light. We could go outside and trace our own shadows with chalk. You could do a discussion on how the sun moves etc by getting them to stand in the same spot two hours later and retracing your shadow to see if it would be the same or not. I got some ideas from Maeve Liston’s PDF on the sun – e.g. if the weather was poor, you could make shadow puppets to use inside.
You could also do an art lesson by drawing the sun shining on people, plants and animals. It is important that children understand the importance of the sun in our everyday life.
I really like the idea of testing the friction of ziplines – a nice fun idea but also teaches them important information
Investigate a variety of materials and see if they are waterproof or not.
Could base it off a real life scenario – we were on a nature walk and ___’s coat kept him dry whilst __’s coat didn’t etc. Why do you think that is? What was different about their coats?
Get them to have a look and feel of the different materials, get them to compare them and then when that is done, they can predict and put them into two categories. Waterproof / Not Waterproof. You could introduce the language permeable vs impermeable but it doesn’t have to be the sole focus of the lesson depending on their age and readiness.
Conducting the investigation could involve spilling a bit of water onto each material and seeing if it stays intact or rips etc.
Get them to record the data into two sections as mentioned earlier in the prediction section.
I enjoyed the idea mentioned in the slides of designing a coat for teddy – this could be a nice junk art idea where you could integrate your lesson here.
Hi, I’m Kevin and I am teaching 3rd class next year. I am interested in space and wanted to learn about some activities/ideas I could use with my class for the coming year and ideas to share with my colleagues in other classes.
2. Consider how many Songs / Poems /Art can you think of to connect us with the Night Sky? For example: Look up President Michael D Higgins’ “Stardust”
There are so many songs, poems and art that connect us with the Night Sky. My class last year loved listening to music during art and I feel doing a few lessons around the Night Sky whilst listening to the music would inspire them. Also, connecting these lessons alongside some poetry in English would be great exposure for the children.
Songs – Sky Full of Stars and Yellow by Coldplay. Rocket Man by Elton John. Written in the Stars – Tinie Tempah. Midnight City by M83. Talking to the Moon by Bruno Mars. Starlight by Muse. Counting Stars by One Republic.
Poems – Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost. The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. A Rocket in My Pocket by Kenn Nesbitt. The Light of Stars by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.Art – Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. Starry Night by Edvard Munch. You could compare and contrast these two similar pieces and have a discussion. Emily Kame Kngwarreye – Australian Aboriginal Dot Paintings – friends of mine have used these as inspiration for Space themed lessons and they worked well.
I like the idea of using story time to teach the children about nocturnal animals. Circle time also a nice simple idea.
I think I would start off with a classroom based lesson or lessons on the topic of biodiversity – getting the children to list their prior knowledge of biodiversity on a website like Mentimeter. You can adapt your lesson here based on the readiness of the children and their knowledge of the topic and how much detail is required.
I think getting the children to explore their local area by taking part in a nature walk is something that would benefit their learning greatly. They can track animals and species they find nearby. We could link the lesson with a data collection lesson in Maths and focus on inputting information and drawing a graph or chart etc. We could also draw a map, plotting where the different animals are seen.
Next, we would look specifically at the impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity by discussing how light would affect certain animals like bats and maybe owls. We could study the map previously drawn and comment on the results – e.g. why certain animals settled in a particular area where it is darker. We could then design posters to make people aware in our school community.
I really like the idea of using the overnight trip as an aid in this lesson. It would be great to chat to the children about their first hand knowledge and experience.
I think doing a KWL chart with the children to begin the lesson would be a good way of seeing what the children’s prior knowledge of light pollution is. I teach in a built up area just outside the city and the majority of the children live in housing estates.
I think for the research part of the lesson, I would split the children into different groups – one group looking at the effect on environmental and local issues i.e. wildlife. Another group could look at the human impact – difficulty sleeping, issues with vision, sensitivity to light etc. The last group could look at the visibility issues regarding the night sky, how many stars are visible from their back garden or stuff like that.
I would then get the children to design a poster or a powerpoint using Canva or Google Slides.
We could even link in with a rural school and present our findings and see if the results are similar or different depending on the area.
#2 Teaching resource – WorldWide Telescope
I think I would get the children to use the WorldWide Telescope to explore the night sky and constellations with an older class. I would start off the lesson with a simple discussion – what do you see at night, what are constellations etc. I would then get the children to open the WorldWide Telescope and explore the Constellations section. Allow time for the children to play around with the website and explore it fully before they jump into the first thing they see. I would then get the children to draw what they see and describe it too.
You could get the children to then present their drawing on the board under the projector, describing which constellation they looked at, how many stars, the shape and whether they noticed any stars or planets etc. Kids are naturally interested in space, stars, the moon and planets so using a resource like this would really get them exploring in further details and gain experience of using a real tool for observing the sky. This could link in with an art lesson – focusing on drawing the constellations and naming them. It would make for a nice display outside the door.This is a great idea. Kids are naturally interested in the sun and moon and yes I agree they believe moon is night, sun is day etc. This would go down a treat with infants.