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The Smeds and the Smoos is one of my favourite picture books to use in Junior Infants. It is so useful for so many different topics. I often use it as a starter for colour mixing but I love you ideas of the children making their own Smeds and Smoos. This would be a very cute Junk Art activity during free play too.
I would chose the activity set based on the sun. There are so many lovely picture books that can be used as a trigger. The Rabbit, the Dark and the Biscuit Tin by Niocla O’ Byrne is always a class favourite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhBhNaKZejE Or Day Monkey, Night Monkey by Julia Donaldson is a lovely story to introduce the topic of shadows.
I’d start by reading this story to the children. Night Monkey doesn’t know what shadows are. At this point of the story I’d staop and use this as a question to engage the children…I wonder what shadows are….
The children chat in groups and share their ideas with the class. I will record their ideas.
I’ll bring the children outside with some chalk, a piece of white paper and a free standing toy. The children can explore the shadows their bodies make in the playground. After a while they can trace around the shadow of their toy on the page to have as a record of their investigation.
Return to the classroom and ask the children why they think the shadows are dark? Do you always have a shadow? How do you think shadows are formed? Where is the light coming from?
Finish the story of Day Monkey, Night Monkey.
Show the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOIGOT88Aqc
I would chose the activity set based on the sun. There are so many lovely picture books that can be used as a trigger. The Rabbit, the Dark and the Biscuit Tin by Niocla O’ Byrne is always a class favourite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhBhNaKZejE Or Day Monkey, Night Monkey by Julia Donaldson is a lovely story to introduce the topic of shadows.
I’d start by reading this story to the children. Night Monkey doesn’t know what shadows are. At this point of the story I’d staop and use this as a question to engage the children…I wonder what shadows are….
The children chat in groups and share their ideas with the class. I will record their ideas.
I’ll bring the children outside with some chalk, a piece of white paper and a free standing toy. The children can explore the shadows their bodies make in the playground. After a while they can trace around the shadow of their toy on the page to have as a record of their investigation.
Return to the classroom and ask the children why they think the shadows are dark? Do you always have a shadow? How do you think shadows are formed? Where is the light coming from?
Finish the story of Day Monkey, Night Monkey.
Show the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOIGOT88Aqc
This sounds great Saoirse. I love The Family of the Sun song. My own little boy was taught it in preschool a few years ago and he still remembers all the facts from it!
An inquiry based learning activity that we have enjoyed in my classroom is based on materials and change.
Strand: Materials
Strand Unit: Materials and change
Curriculum Objective: Explore the effects of heating and cooling on everyday items.
Engage:
The Trigger: Have the children arrive in after break to fine some toys from our classroom frozen in a block on ice on the tuff tray.
Wondering: I wonder how we could melt the ice quickly so we can play with our toys again…
Exploring: Brainstorming or Think/Pair/Share-have children come up with some ideas as to how to could do this.
Investigate:
Starter Question: Which material will speed up the ice melting?
Children will have water, tin foil and salt available to them.
Predicting: By drawing a smiley face on a worksheet children will use predict which material they think will speed up the melting process.
Conducting the investigation: In this experiment children will test 4 different items to see if any of them affect how fast ice melts. We will use sand, salt, tin foil and baking soda.
The children will work in small groups. They will place an equal number of ice cubes in bowls and sprinkle them with each substance. We will have one bowl with nothing sprinkled on it to act as a control.
Sharing: Using iPads the children will take pictures every 10 minutes to record the process so that the children can share their results with the other groups in the class. They will record their final results on the same worksheet they made their predictions on.
Taking the next steps:
Applying Learning: Chat about why we salt the roads during the winter time.
During playtime have the children free polar animals from ice.
Challenge the children to construct containers that would stop the ice cubes from melting for the longest time.
I love BeeBots. Lots of Education Centres have BeeBots available for schools to use. I only found this out last year. Good to know if your school aren’t in a position to purchase them.
