Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi everyone,
My name is Laura and I’m a primary school teacher in a DEIS Band 1 school. I currently teach Senior Infants and also work as a SET. I really enjoy using practical, hands-on activities in my teaching, especially ones that get the children asking questions and figuring things out for themselves. I’m looking forward to picking up some new ideas from this course and hearing what everyone else does in their classrooms.
One of my favourite space facts is that a day on Venus is actually longer than a year on Venus. I remember hearing that years ago and thinking there was no way it could be true!
One inquiry-based activity I think would work really well in my classroom is investigating what makes a paper rocket travel the furthest. I’d give the children different materials and let them work in small groups to design and test their own rockets using straws. Before they start, I’d ask them to make predictions about which rocket they think will travel the furthest and why. After each test they could make small changes to their design and see if it made a difference.
I think this kind of activity is great because the childrens learning comes from trying things out themselves rather than just listening to an explanation. It also naturally leads to lots of discussion as they compare results and explain why they think one rocket worked better than another. It links really well with Science, Maths and oral language too. From my own experience, the children are usually much more engaged when they feel like they’re discovering something for themselves, so I think this would be a really enjoyable way to introduce the topic of Space.