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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.
Elaine,
the paper plate sundial looks to be a nice personal size version of recording the shadows from a fixed stick in the ground. I found this guide to it:
https://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/science-at-home/diy-science-fun/make-a-sundial
The way you have described the activity allows the children plenty of opportunity to wonder and explore. Would you then allow them the time to investigate a question of their own choosing? They might wonder if the sundial would work the same in winter when the sun rises so much later (or, they might not realise that yet, so might make a prediction about using the sundial in winter, then try it out).
Grace,
the straw paper rocket is a great, simple rocket. How easy was it for the infants to roll their own rockets? We’ve found that they can find the fine motor skills a bit tricky, so tend to use rocket mouse with the very youngest children, and the straw rocket with 3rd class and up.
Amy,
Forces are used in the second of the investigations in this module, and are a powerful theme to engage young children via play. My colleague Frances pretends to be a shortsighted very-literal robot with young classes, and asks them to tell her how to move a wheely chair from one side of the room to another. She tells them that the robot can’t see very well, so they will have to tell her how to make the chair move.
She claims that she doesn’t understand the word “push” so that they have to tell how to make a “push”.
Aaron,
At BCO we have used water rockets for a number of years, I wasn’t aware that the water was optional in this high pressure rocket set up.
One requirement of these is to use carbonated drinks bottles, since they have the strength required to stay whole under pressure.
We use a commercial kit – the Rokit kit, and find it really good, the kit comes with an education supports – at https://waterrokit.com/learning-zone/
Claire,
magnetism is one of those topics that absolutely lends itself to exploration in an inquiry style. Since the metals that are often found in a classroom contain iron, do try to have a range of non-magnetic metals to hand. Aluminium (in the form of tin foil or drinks cans) and the jewellry metals of gold and silver are good choices. If you have any coins, they can also be tested.
Once they children have explored which materials are attracted to the magnets, they might look at ideas around “do magnets have to touch a material to pull it?” This can lead to one of BCO’s favourite fun activities – bug races, with the bugs made from twists of pipecleaners, the magnets are under the table and the bugs have to race from one side of a table to another. An extension can be to make a bug path, and the magnet has to pull the bug along the path.
Eimear,
Do you have link to that game that you can share? A google search hasn’t identified it for me.
You have identified a wide range of activities around weather and a good choice of “take the next steps” that will permit the children to extend their understanding. Nice work.
Eimear,
dice for traits is a lovely addition to this, and could even be used for a younger class. One table can make a family of aliens that another table could use to sort and classify.
Eveleen,
rockets are such a great theme for a Space Week activity, and by offering multiple types of rockets in stations the children are sure to find one that they can ‘connect’ with. You’ve given them opportunities to predict and then investigate and then reflect, all of which are key components of Inquiry based learning. Well done.
Fiona,
you have shared a comprehensive plan for a classroom week, please do let us know how it works out for you. We encourage you to register as an “event” with spaceweek.ie, and you might find the SpaceWeek TV episodes that are hosted on YouTube useful:
Rachel,
You’ve described a variety of activities to engage children across space week, and I like that you have considered integration across many subjects.
This year Space Week starts on a Saturday, so you might want to prepare the Moon journals to start then, since the Moon will be full on 7 October, rising at sunset just before 7pm, and rising later each day after that. By the end of the Space Week on October 10 I’d suggest looking for the Moon in the morning sky as it will set at 1 pm in the afternoon.
Emma,
this activity set strikes me as quite challenging for a very young class, but very doable with 4th or up. It is similar to this Curious Minds activity, suggested for 5th and 6th: https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/keeping_warm_activity.pdf
The rather prescriptive style of the activities suggests to to me that they could be used as the prompt – and then the children can design their own experiment to further investigate some aspect of the fabric that interests them.
I’m unsure about Activity 2, it has a title of breathability, but seems to be about how fast clothing dries. I know that man-made sports shirts dry much faster than cotton t-shirts, but am less sure of how that is related to breathability.
This article goes into it in more detail: https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/how-to-pick-the-most-breathable-fabrics.html
Rachael,
in Module 4 we share the “Stellarium” software, which has multiple different cultural constellation drawings available. We find at the Observatory that visitors know of constellations if they are particularly interested in astronomy, but the majority of our visitors might know the names of one or two stars and know very little of the 88 constellations in the sky.
Aaron,
it is remarkable how quickly the shadows do change. We did this activity with teachers when we offered this as a face to face course. We were all surprised that in the time it took one person to draw another’s shadow, their own shadow can changed.
A teachers shared that they asked their class to “fit into someone else’s shadow”, and found this to be both fun and full of learning as the children really had to think how their own shadow was being formed.
Niamh,
thanks for sharing the Saturn Moon fact- I had somehow missed the number increasing so dramatically. This was announced in March of this year:
https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/
When I was in college Saturn had 15 moons, only 11 of which were known prior to the Pioneer 11 spacecraft visit in 1979.