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Anthony,
You will find a wealth of ideas from very many very experienced teachers who have taught in the junior end of the school in the forum, please do take the time to have a good look through.
You are quite right on the waterproof materials being easily accessible, this is one of the criteria of the Curious Minds programme, that the materials should be ‘everyday.’
Aaron,
this activity can be found in ESERO for older children as A Soft Landing.
I like the way you have structured it, since this allows the children to use their knowledge of materials as well as their understanding of forces.
A variant that we run at Blackrock Castle is to allow a small budget per group to ‘purchase’ materials. In this way, the children have to make decisions about what they think is essential. Top tip from my colleague is to have the string affordable!
Ciara,
thank you for sharing the link to the song. We like to produce an end of course summary with the recommendations from teachers. You can find the three previous iterations at spaceweek.ie as
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SpaceWeekJunior-1.pdf
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SpaceWeekJunior2022.pdf
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/SpaceWeekJunior_2023.pdf
In what month do you usually cover “space,” October would be ideal to connect to World Space Week, but I know of teachers who prefer January when it is dark early.
Thanks for sharing these captioned videos of solar system songs. I think with your actions from the Planet activity you could discuss with the children if the planets ever do line up on one side of the Sun as implied in the video.
When planets do line up it is referred to as a conjunction. Conjunctions of 2 planets are reasonably common, three or more quite unusual. Mars and Jupiter will be in conjunction in August in the morning sky.
David,
a good summary of the various planetary missions is at the Planetary Society. I find this site useful since it includes the many space agencies around the world, not just the one that most children know.
Siobhan,
thank you for sharing this lesson outline adapted to your own context. For teachers who don’t have a whiteboard with a low enough light to be able to block it, you can put object on meter sticks or poles, or find an unused projector that you can mount lower down.
You might consider making a shadow theatre set up. In this way, the children behind the stage create a show that can be viewed easily, without their own shadows blocking.
Here is a make your own: https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/home-and-family/how-to/diy-shadow-puppet-theater
Bríd,
inquiry learning in the context of this course refers to the Framework for Inquiry, so I am glad to see you use a prompt to engage the children. With stars it can be tricky to carry out an investigation, so, children in an older class might pose a starter question that they can then explore by research.
So, a child might share that they know that some stars look different brighter in the sky. Another child might say “I think that is because they are different distances away – I have noticed that a car headlight looks dim if it is far, but brighter if closer”. They could then check data on the distance to stars vs how bright they look to see if this prediction is correct.
Eimear,
Giving children the opportunity to model the boat going over the ocean and disappearing into the distance is a good way for them to directly connect the physical world to the a mental model.
I would delay on including seasons at junior class level, it appears in the curriculum for 3rd/4th class and for 5th/6th class, but very much as an observational activity:
“observe the changing lengths of day and night during the seasons”
At Junior Cycle Students are expected to work with a Sun – Earth model to explain seasons.
See also this article on how seasons are not well understood by many people:
Felicity,
did you know that due to lack of erosion, the lunar surface rock (which is called regolith) is very sharp and this makes it sticky.
Some lunar dust recently was sold:
Muireann,
counting sections of an image is a great way to use estimation to gather data.
If your image includes a swathe of the Milky Way, this can lead to an purposeful discussion about how stars are not evenly distributed around us. For a further step, you could ask the children if it would be possible to tell where the Sun and Earth are in the Milky Way by looking at the star counts in different directions.
The image from Lots and Lots of Stars could work, or this image from ESO called GigaGalaxy Zoom and here.
Eimear,
Please review the activities in the module, where Draw a Constellation or Make a Star Lantern ask the children to use their mathematical awareness around the theme of stars.
The sensory activity you have mentioned
I would set up a darkened room with twinkling lights or glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling to create a night sky effect
seem more suitable to actual infant children, rather than Infants in the Irish primary school system. Similarly, soft star objects for tactile sense seems a bit too juvenile.
Note that the curriculum expects:
stars in Geography (Infants: identify and discuss the sun, the moon
and stars)and the Sun in Science (recognise that the sun gives us heat and light, without which we could not survive and become aware of the dangers of looking directly at the sun in 1st class)
You could link stars to day and night with globes and models, or by having bright lights with dimmer lights near them to model the Sun ‘overpowering’ the much fainter stars.
Elaine,
would the children’s predictions at the beginning be based on anything more than a guess? If so, then this would make an excellent prompt – and they could be asked after a day what they think would happen the next day. In this way, their understanding is being tested, rather than them guessing and finding out.
One child might think: the gummy bear started small and it got big because it took in water, but it is like my stomach – there is a point when you can’t put any more in, so it won’t get any bigger.
Another might think: the gummy bear got bigger because the water went into it. The outside of the bear can still get bigger, so it will still get even bigger.
Another might think: the gummy bear is mixing with the water, so in another day the gummy bear will be sludge in the glass.
These three different predictions are based on their understanding and have testable results, which you then do over the next day so that they can share their results.
If a child has another question – I wonder if this would be the same in milk? (they might say that milk is mostly water, so yes) – then that would be a testable take the next step.
Here is an example of a home group that tried lots of different liquids.
Hi Mark,
a resource from Night Sky Network is here:
https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/download-view.cfm?Doc_ID=317
This has an activity outline and a power point, with a video of the activity in action.
We have a larger version of this gravity bucket that we used with summer camp children. Colleague Danielle and Cian used it with this short video on Jupiter.
Hi Elaine,
I like how you have restricted the children to rafts, so that floating is the key issue, and the rather more complex ideas of buoyancy and boat design can be met when they are a bit older.
In Cork one of the local councillors has run a Model Boat competition for a number of years (14!). This year’s rules are here: https://corkharbourfestival.com/register-now-lord-mayor-kieran-mccarthys-make-a-model-boat-project-2024/
and previous year’s images can be found on his website.
https://youtu.be/JkAAhec70Cw?si=AoLijhjT2DKTw2sd
Have you a large pond nearby that they might use to float their boat?
Sharon,
one of our colleagues at Blackrock Castle ends her planetarium shows with “what is one difference between a planet and a star? — not sure — well, think of the old favourite ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Planet’ — what? I said it wrong? — then there’s a difference.”
I have seen these made with star stickers or yellow plasticine stars, all can be effective. The interesting learning around mathematics will come when the children look at the models from different angles and see that the Plough Shape is only visible if you are directly above, or, if you hang these on the ceiling , directly below the model.
