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Engaging in Space Week is a week full of fun learning a for the children .
Being a Senior Infant class there is a lot of singing art and craft and experiments going on ,
Monday
Planets and the Solar System Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2prtmPEjOc.
Discussion not the planets and divide the kids up into groups to make their own solar system with balloons of different colours, markers ,string , wool and a variety of amaterials to make the planets, Discussion on size of each planet in relation to each other and visual representation on whiteboard to help them would have been covered before starting the craft activity.
Tuesday The Moon
Discussion and watch the first Landing on the moon
Mystery Science What would it be like to live on the Moon? What is the Moon Made of ?
Using shaving foam the children could make their own moon surface.
Wednesday The Sun /Shadows and Sundail
Hopefully the weather will be on our side and the children will be able to get outside to create a sun dail using chalk. There are many video clips on the sundail that children could watch . This could be linked into the history of telling the time and clocks through the ages .
Children could work in pairs and draw shadows of themselves at different times of the day ….weather permitting.
Thursday
Mice Rockets experinments , Here the children will experinment with different bottle types ,different mice and make measurements to decide which is the best rocket and why .
Friday
Storytime where the children listen to stories about Aliens and where they come live .What planet do you think an alien could live on? Why ? What do yo think they would look like ? What would they need.?
Revise The Solar System song .
Air Dough provided and the kids after discussion will make their own Alien and when dried paint and decorate.
End the week with a Kahoot quiz .
As part of Aistear I have used the theme of Cold Places . This allows the children to look at the North and South Poles. I introduce the topic by having a Globe for the children to look at and discuss land and sea and places they may be familiar with and where their families may have orginally came from . We then would listen to the Seven Continents song and say we are going to learn about Antarcticia. Children are shown picture promps of animals and the environment and a discussion follows about how animals could survive and what they would need to live in such cold conditions.
Short clips of the film’ March of the Penguins ‘ could be shown and questions raised about how they keep warm asked . I have found that children are very interested in nature and may have many good answers .
I have used the Mystery Science site where children pose questions to be answered it is excellent and one such mini lesson is ‘How do polar bears survive the cold ‘ the children love this and are fully engaged throughout as during the lesson they are posed with questions to discuss before you move on .The National Geographic for kids have many short videos full of facts for kids .
We also carried out experiments using plastic animals to see what is waterproof using vaseline ,cooking oil, toothpaste and other products to see what is the best .Children hace also brought in feathers and we have tested them to see if they are waterproof .We finish off the lesson of a story like Little Penguin ,The Emperor of the Antarctic .
I would introduce the lesson by firstly getting the kids to recite the nursery rhyme Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and then discuss the things that they know about stars. How many corners ,edges etc What colour are they? How many do they think there are ? more grains of sand than stars?
There are many childrens books on the stars and our sky.’ The Sky is Full of Stars’ byFranklyn Banley. ‘Our Stars ‘ Anne Rockwell or ‘Zoo in the Sky’ by Jackqueline Mitton are to name some . I would read the book or evn better use the IWB ro show a video of the story to the kids. After in a darkened room I would use a Star Lamp to project stars around the room and with the children lying dowm getting them to look for patterns or shapes they may see. Tell them about constellations.Remind them that space is silent and could they imagine themselves as one of these stars.
I would then continue the lesson with some print making .
They will need a styrafoam tray, pencil , paint (black,dark blue,yellow) and a piece of plain white paper. The children will cut out the base of the tray and jusy have a smooth flat piece of styrafoam .The y will poke holes through it to represent the stars and then using the pencil trace lines to connect the stars just enough to see the lines . They then paint it black and then press on the plain paper to make a print o f their stars and constellation .They can then reprint with the blue paint . They could then name their constellation and display.
Finish off with some quite time gazind at the star projector lamp in the darkened classroom .
I have taught Senior Infants for the last couple of years and we have always enjoyed learning about the Planets and Solar System. I usually start with a brain storming activity to see what the children might know. This I would follow with a short video. From this I would introduce the song about the planets. after we would ask about what planets they can remember and a few facts about each planet. I would record on this information on the whiteboard and discuss.
We would the listen to the song again and add more information .
Now we would add a bit of movement and include the dance activity .
I often pause the lesson there for the day and will continue the next day recapping what they know and singing the song with movement again . we would then discuss how we could represent the planets. I have used large pieces of cardboard in various sizes and in groups asked the kids to create a planet. Having discussed sizes of planets the children would pick the correct piece of cardboard and proceed to paint and create a representation of the planet. Lots of materials are available to them to create the surface of each planet. At this stage I would let the children listen to the Song ‘The Solar System’ and this gives more details of how the planets look.
Finally the children will preform the song with their art work .
A really enjoyable and fun learning activity.
I have trying this activity with the children in the yard using chalk. It was great fun and lots of learning when on ,
Teaching senior infants involves a lot of learning through themed play activities.One of the themes is camping and this opens up a lot of opportunity for inquiry based learning .Introducing the idea of preparing for a camping trip I read the story Herman’s holiday . Discussion on what we need for camping follows. We discuss the weather ,clothing and tents etc. The children will look at different fabrics and materials and describe them. Questions asked …….Which material would keep you warm ? dry ? cool ? The children will predict and the test the materials in simple experiements to get results . Results are recorded in a child friendly way .Finally the children could be asked to make a waterproof tent for their teddy bear and test it to see if it works .
This activity is fun and it is child based learning and developing and inquisitive mind.
Hi my Name is Roisin and I will be teaching Senior Infants in September .i am really looking forward to this course.
