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I would choose to teach the lesson set about alien life. This set of lessons lends itself to cross curricular integration through art, drama, SPHE and religion. I would begin by doing a circle time and pose the question “What makes earth so wonderful?” We would discuss the fact that earth is a planet and I would have images on the interactive whiteboard to show planet earth in space. I would ask the children to think about this and then we would discuss as a whole class. I would go on to say that as far as we know, there are no other living things on other planets. If we were to have a visitor from space, what amazing things from earth would you like to show them. I would then ask the children in pairs to act out their response to this. The other children could guess what it is they are imitating. At the end of the lesson they would then be given materials for drawing and I would ask them to draw what they think an alien visitor would look like. This lesson had lots of scope for further extension. I would read books such as “We’re off to look for aliens” by Colin McNaughton. We could hone our thoughts and think about how they might be different from us. The children could then go on to create a 3D model of their alien using playdough or clay.
I like the idea of extending this lesson to include information on uv light. I thought that the uv light beads were an excellent resource that I haven’t seen before. It could be a resource worth buying for future lessons.
I would choose the lesson about the sun and shadows. I have taught this lesson many times before but I find it such a real and engaging way to learn about shadows. Children form their own ideas about what shadows are so it’s interesting for them to go outside and rest their theories. We would previously have been learning about the sun so I would begin with questioning the children and trying to get them to draw on their prior knowledge. I would bring them outside and discuss where the light is coming from. We would observe our shadows, trace them with chalk and then I would bring the children back together to discuss our findings. I would put new questions to them such as are all shadows the same size? What would happen on a cloudy day etc. We could bring other items from the classroom to test their shadows such as a school bag, football etc. Back in the classroom I would give the children the worksheet that accompanies this lesson, where they must predict the shadows that would form for certain objects in order to check for understanding and consolidate the learning. Over the course of the next week I would complete further investigations such ad using torches to investigate shadows and I would bring the children out on a cloudy day to see if we observe shadows. I would incorporate some songs and stories about the moon to supplement our learning.
Hi Grace. I love your idea of a space explorer mission. This is perfect for the infant classroom and would tie in nicely with Aistear and many other subjects for meaningful integration across the curriculum.
Hi, my name is Laura and I will be teaching 1st class in September. I have been teaching junior and senior infants for the past 14 years so this will be a change! My favourite space fact is that Venus spins in the opposite direction and is the only planet in our solar system to do this.
I love science and really enjoy teaching this subject. As I’m going into 1st class, I look forward to doing lots of enquiry based activities with the children. There is so much for scope for deeper thinking and learning and I love to teach through group and pair work which is perfect for this kind of tracing and learning. The examples given in module one were all very practical and interesting ways to teach about gravity and materials. I have taught lessons in infants that were enquiry based and very hands on in how we investigated and tested materials when trying to figure out which materials were waterproof and ones that were not. I love the idea of giving the children a stater question or fun scenario to begin the lesson. I am a big advocate of learning through play and this is a perfect way to introduce a topic and get the children invested and interested. I look forward to checking out all of the activities and ideas on the curious minds website and putting them into practise.
