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I really enjoyed the rocket activities in this module and could see myself using many of them in an infant classroom. To introduce the topic, I would read a story such as <i>Aliens Love Underpants</i> or <i>The Way Back Home</i> to hook the class while exploring the features of narrative texts and modelling good reading strategies. On the second reading, I would include questioning and use hot seating with one of the main characters to develop oral language. As a drama activity, pairs could take part in a “rocket tour” before watching a short NASA or ESA rocket launch. I would link the theme to Maths by creating a 2D shape rocket and using a 20-second countdown to practise counting backwards. After exploring a balloon rocket, we could move on to the Rocket Mouse activity, while I model a foam or fizzy rocket investigation. Before testing, everyone would make oral predictions with a partner and afterwards illustrate and explain their findings using a sentence or some words to explain depending on their ability and class. I also loved the cross-curricular ideas. It gave me ideas such as launching bean bags as “rockets” and measuring the distance travelled using non-standard units like hands or footsteps.
That sounds like such a great link to maths and oral language. The changes in materials activity with the baking soda and the vinegar sounds great. It could also be linked to baking, reading/writing recipes, and the change in those materials to further a real life connection for the students.
Using that book sounds like a great way to hook the learners in and to also develop and model reading skills. I also really like the idea of giving them a choice of what medium they use to create their home. It also would be a fun stations based learning activity in which each station creates their home using a various medium. Reading the text with a teacher or working in a small group through a hands on experiment or exploration of weather could be a meaningful teacher lead station.
I really enjoyed the activities exploring Where Do You Live? and Weather because they provided so many opportunities to make learning meaningful and relatable for young children. The village full of houses activity immediately connects to children’s own lives, allowing them to discuss where they live and the different buildings they see in their local community. This could easily be extended by exploring the people who help us in our community, creating valuable cross-curricular links. Using modelling clay to build houses would be an excellent way to develop fine motor skills in the infant classroom, while cutting out drawings of their homes would further strengthen these skills and create an attractive display that encourages discussion. The Animals in the Cold activity links naturally with the earlier penguin, polar bear and alien activities as children explore different habitats and how animals adapt to survive. The What Clothes Do We Wear? activity also provides excellent links to maths and music through discussions, rhymes and songs about seasons, months and day and night, while Gaeilge can be incorporated by learning vocabulary for clothing and places within the local community. These activities are fantastic for beginning in cross curricular links and align with an integrated approach.
I would use the Space and Aliens activity with a Senior Infants class because it is a fun way to get children thinking about science while using their imagination. I would begin by talking about what living things need to survive, such as food, water, air and shelter, linking it to what they have already learned in science. Using role play such as a freeze frame or hot spotting an alien/human being would be a good way to deepen this understanding and to front load the students with information prior to creating their martian. We would then imagine a new planet together and discuss what it might be like. The children would create their own alien that could live on that planet, thinking about why it might have certain features like extra eyes, long arms or thick fur. They would draw and talk about their alien with a partner before sharing their ideas with the class. This would encourage lots of discussion, questioning and listening to each other’s ideas. The activity also links really well with maths through counting body parts, describing shapes and comparing sizes. I think this activity would keep the children engaged while helping them develop their creativity, scientific thinking and confidence in explaining their ideas to others. Next I think that I would work on creating aliens in the “design a martian” task with clay or morla would be a very fun way to develop fine motor skills, as well develop an understanding of form when physically creating the alien. For writing I would also create a link by labeling the alien’s body parts or the landscape they live in. If I had time for quite a long unit of work, I would also explore non fiction texts and work on writing factual information texts about animals, touching on their adaptions, prior to this activity.
I also love the idea of comparing the landscapes. It brings a real life connection and experience to the learners, and would link really nicely to teaching about the landscapes on planet Earth and the mosaic activity from the previous module.
I love the connection to the shapes and the letter S to integrate numeracy and literacy skills. I think a rich text for example the Neil Armstrong from the “Little People, Big dreams” book collection could be a nice addition for a non-fiction text.
- Activity: The Spherical Earth
I would introduce the lesson with a think, pair, share activity to access prior knowledge. The students could discuss the question: What does the earth look like? Perhaps imagining they are aliens that are orbiting the earth. Asking them to draw what the aliens could see as they get closer, and also when they land. Using the planet earth song from the story bots is a great way to hook the students in as its catchy and very fun. With this front loading I would then use the role-play task.I really liked the role-play activity with the polar bear and the penguin. It is a fun and engaging way to encourage children to put themselves in the place of the animals and challenge their previous ideas about the Earth being a globe and why people and animals do not fall off. It also gives the teacher a great opportunity to assess the children’s prior knowledge by letting them discuss their ideas in pairs before sharing with the class. Using real images of the Earth from space is another excellent way to spark curiosity and help children connect what they are learning to the real world. I also loved the Earth mosaic activity. It allows every child to express their own understanding while seeing how their classmates think and learn. The collaborative nature of the activity makes learning enjoyable and interactive. Exploring the ideas of “up” and “down” using the completed mosaic is a brilliant way to reinforce children’s understanding of the Earth’s shape and gravity in a simple, age-appropriate way. I would also use higher order questions to explore this and deepen their understanding.
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<li aria-level=”1″>Activity: The Spherical Earth
I would introduce the lesson with a think, pair, share activity to access prior knowledge. The students could discuss the question: What does the earth look like? Perhaps imagining they are aliens that are orbiting the earth. Asking them to draw what the aliens could see as they get closer, and also when they land. Using the planet earth song from the story bots is a great way to hook the students in as its catchy and very fun. With this front loading I would then use the role-play task.I really liked the role-play activity with the polar bear and the penguin. It is a fun and engaging way to encourage children to put themselves in the place of the animals and challenge their previous ideas about the Earth being a globe and why people and animals do not fall off. It also gives the teacher a great opportunity to assess the children’s prior knowledge by letting them discuss their ideas in pairs before sharing with the class. Using real images of the Earth from space is another excellent way to spark curiosity and help children connect what they are learning to the real world. I also loved the Earth mosaic activity. It allows every child to express their own understanding while seeing how their classmates think and learn. The collaborative nature of the activity makes learning enjoyable and interactive. Exploring the ideas of “up” and “down” using the completed mosaic is a brilliant way to reinforce children’s understanding of the Earth’s shape and gravity in a simple, age-appropriate way. I would also use higher order questions to explore this and deepen their understanding.
Module 1:
I think inquiry-based learning is a great way to teach all classes because it encourages children to be curious and learn by doing. Instead of just giving them the answers, the teacher helps them ask questions, make predictions and explore ideas for themselves. For example when teaching the infant classes, during a lesson on gravity, I could ask the children, “What do you think will happen if we drop a feather and a toy car?” The children could share their ideas first (predict) orally in pairs, and then by drawing their predictions before we tested it together. Afterwards, we would talk about what happened and why both objects fell, while introducing simple words like “gravity” and “air resistance.” Activities like this make learning exciting and help children develop observation, communication and problem-solving skills. Every child has the chance to join in by asking questions, making predictions and sharing what they notice. I believe using inquiry in Infant classes helps children become more confident learners and gives them a strong foundation for learning science in the future. Using a range of questions and teacher observations quill assist with furthering their thinking and future planning.
This is a really good inquiry based lesson for junior infants Claire, I like the questions that you have used. They are a mixture of open-ended questions to encourage explanations, and also questions that will make the students stop, think and test again.
Hello,
My name is Lauren and I’ve been based in the junior classes quite a bit. I have always been fascinated by space and love seeing the wonder of each child as you teach it to them. I think my most random fact is about the space training process in Japan. As part of the astronaut training the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) requires astronaut candidates to fold 1000 paper cranes to show how they can stay calm and challenge their psychological endurance, their patience and attention to detail.
Looking forward to learning more about space and how to bring it to the classroom.
That is great to know it is such a big hit with the kids, I look forward to getting stuck into using it this year.
How can we promote more biodiversity in our school community to help our city environment?
As we are based in an inner city school and have a big school garden, getting the students to do a paired garden detective walk to identify the wildlife we already have in the school would be a hook creating a real life connection.
I would discuss the green house effect and the benefit of more organisms in our local area, encouraging the students to see the bigger picture and the positive impact we can make by promoting biodiversity.
A project for taking action which I have done with a previous 5th class was to build bird boxes and a pollinator, which we hammered and built in small groups. As well as this we planted the school garden. I think these would be a good an action to take and documenting this and perhaps getting younger year levels involved would be very beneficial. The older classes could present to the younger classes, or they could create a mini lesson to present in small groups to younger classes.