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Denise,
I really like your suggestions on ways to use Astronomy Picture of the Day with different classes -may we share them with other teachers as part of the Space Week Arts ideas?
Aishling,
with the planet video, if you look at the image of the solar system at https://youtu.be/noiwY7kQ5NQ?feature=shared&t=51
there could be an interesting maths discussion about – “is that really how the planets are arranged” – and with the Solar System resource you could look at creating a scale model with children as the planets. This is super in a large area, with the children tasked to move at different speeds. You might ask for “big steps” small steps, baby steps, as different children take on the role of faster or slower planets.
Marie,
thanks for mentioning The Marrog – it is a poem that has been mentioned in other years that this course has run, but I think you are the first to include it this year.
https://www.thelearningzoo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Picture-It-The-Marrog.pdf
There are further suggestions here: https://irishprimaryteacher.ie/the-marrog/
I think comparing and contrasting Mars to Earth is a powerful way for the children to explore the differences. They may not know a lot about Mars, so be sure to offer images to help them see the differences. A suitable source of those images is the Mars resource from spaceweek.ie, or this from NASA.
Sinéad,
can you link to the mini games and animations from Marvin and Milo? I must have missed them and can only see pdfs and outlines of activities. Which cartoon are you thinking of that references air and wind? Much as I like Marvin and Milo, it could really use a topic index.
There is a Curious Minds activity about moving air at: https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/moving_air.pdf
this would make a suitable inquiry investigation with plenty of suggested prompts and fair testing challenges built into the possible activities.
Sabrina,
I’m glad you appreciate Stellarium, it is a powerhouse in the planetarium community. It is still under development and there are a range of supports that can be used with it, particularly from US Professor Patricia Reiff. You can find links to these supports from the D.O.M.E project, a recent Erasmus+ project that BCO were engaged with on building cardboard planetariums.
https://dome.nuclio.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/D.O.M.E.-QuickStartGuide-Stellarium.pdf
Katie,
your Martian activity sounds like an engaging experience for infants. I like the inclusion of Aliens Love Underpants, it really is a super story for that age group and has a wide range of alien body types, with different eyes, shapes, colours – all of which can support early Maths and Science observation skills.
Did you know that there are official Alien Underpants songs?
Emily,
you have clearly shown the inquiry framework applied to rockets, by choosing a suitable prompt, giving the children a chance to explore how the rockets work and then developing the investigation.
I like that you have identified a suitable next step – great stuff.
Eithne,
planning the Moon observations to start with a crescent Moon in the early evening progressing to a full Moon is a great idea. Be sure to look up when the Moon is new, and start a few days after that. It will take about a fortnight to go from crescent to full Moon.
Sean,
the balloons as described in Module 5 are a super example of inquiry based learning, with all aspects of the Inquiry Framework in place to support learning.
The children will be engaged in the topic through the video clips, and will have the opportunity to make balloons that model real rocket behaviour. With the starter question “do bigger balloons go further” they have the opportunity to describe what they think will happen, based on their own understanding of forces, and then find out if their ideas are correct in the investigation phase.
They can record and share their results, then discuss if their predictions were correct.
Since this will be dependent on the distance the rockets are given to fly, it would be a good idea to give different groups different lengths of string – which then gives a very relevant “take the next step“
Valerie,
you have described a research based inquiry process, where, once the children have made a prediction, they can use research to help investigate the topic.
The rocket sounds like an amazingly engaging prompt, and once the children have wondered and explored they can ask their own questions and find out answers. This might be based on comparisons that they can make with the Earth, for example, “I wonder if other planets are the same temperature as the Earth?” and they might expect the two planets that are closer to the Sun to be warmer.
This can then be verified by research, and any unexpected research can lead to a further inquiry.
James,
this is a great example of a prompt to engage the children’s interest. I like how you have given them their starter question, and would suggest that you ask them to make a prediction based on their understanding.
If they need to do some preliminary work before making their prediction, they might look at the relationship between height and foot size for their class, then make a prediction for a wider age of people, and include adults in the data.
Justyne,
this has sent me down a rabbit hole of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star facts.
Did you know that there are actually 5 verses?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkle,_Twinkle,_Little_Star
Do you propose to use these lyrics? or is “Stars” a different song?
Dawn,
thanks for sharing thoughtful and appropriate suggestions for prompt videos for your activity sequence on the Planets and the Moon.
Images of the surface of each planet are a bit tricky to get, there hasn’t been a lander on Mercury, but there are plenty of pictures from orbit due to the Messenger mission and the BepiColumbo mission.
Venus was only landed on by a few landers in the 1970s, it is very inhospitable, but images do exist. You can read about the difficulty of getting images of the surface here: https://www.planetary.org/articles/how-do-we-see-the-surface-of-venus-from-space
Mars is easy, there are lots of rovers and landers.
The outer planets don’t have solid surfaces!
Thanks for sharing the story: https://youtu.be/yDoLVpEJkhI?si=p65UM9FexzAikz5i,
although I’m not sure how Barnaby found Tilly just by knowing where north is!
There is scope for an older class to look at why Polaris remains in the same part of the sky, possibly by making star maps or using this resource from SpaceWeek.ie
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/The-Plough-Clock.pdf
Tara,
in Module 4 we share “Stellarium” which is planetarium software. An option for your night sky of stars might be to shine this up on the ceiling from a projector. It can be displayed on a whiteboard, but covering the expanse of a ceiling would be much more dramatic.
You could explore why stars twinkle – see this video> https://youtu.be/Pu9Yu-DMfyM?si=UH_1LAztKljeo7ws, the galaxy jars that you make may well act as the atmosphere.