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Cross-Curricular Space-Themed Learning
These cross-curricular activities would be carried out over a fortnight with my Junior or Senior Infants, alongside Space-themed Aistear play stations.
I would begin by introducing the new topic, Space, and completing a KWL chart with the children to explore what they already know and what they would like to find out. Throughout the fortnight, I would update a Space-themed display board with the children’s work and new learning.
Literacy
• Teach “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
• Read The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield, Busy People: Astronaut by Lucy M. George and How It Works: Rocket by Amelia Hepworth.
• Discuss the books, focusing on what the children learned, their favourite parts and whether they would like to become astronauts.
• Read The Smeds and the Smoos by Julia Donaldson and discuss what an alien might look like.
Maths
• Count backwards from 10 for a rocket countdown and blast-off.
• Create and continue patterns by cutting and sticking shapes to a rocket.
History
• Watch age-appropriate videos of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon in 1969 and discuss the first Moon landing.
Geography
• Identify and discuss the Sun, Moon and stars and explore the differences between day and night.
Science
• Explore how shadows are formed and go outside to trace the children’s shadows with chalk.
Drama
• Pretend to be astronauts in Space and explore how they might walk on the Moon, move without gravity, wear a spacesuit, breathe and communicate.
Art
• Children colour an astronaut outline. Take a photograph of each child and place their face inside the astronaut’s helmet to create their own astronaut picture.
Play
Role-play: Set up a Space Travel Agency where children can buy tickets and travel to different planets.
Art and crafts: Design and create 2D and 3D aliens using materials such as playdough, clay, wire, tinfoil, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, fabric, wool and cardboard.
Sensory play: Make coloured slime and add googly eyes or beads.
Playdough: Use Space-themed mats to make stars, asteroids, Saturn’s rings, moon craters, rockets, aliens and planets.
Sand/Water: Create a Space-themed small-world area using astronauts, rockets, aliens, planets, stars, the Moon and asteroids.
Construction: Use LEGO or magnetic tiles to design and build rocket ships.Hands-On Classroom Activities – The Arctic
Prior to these activities, the children will have completed several lessons exploring the Arctic region, including the animals that live there, their habitats and the weather conditions. A classroom display board with laminated pictures and simple information about the topic will provide a visual reference.
The activities can be completed during play as stations or as morning carousel/table-top activities.
Play Dough Station
Children will use play dough and laminated mats to create Arctic-themed objects and animals, such as polar bears, walrus teeth, icebergs, snowballs, snowflakes, polar bear dens and footprints. The mats are available from Twinkl. This activity supports fine-motor development, creativity and vocabulary.
Small World Station
Small trays from Dealz/Mr Price can be used to give each child their own space. The trays will contain artificial snow, small white beads and a laminated Arctic scene. Children can use miniature Arctic animals to create their own habitats and engage in imaginative play. The animals can be sourced from Amazon.
Construction Station
Using wooden blocks and small Arctic animal figures, children can create their own Arctic scenes, including polar bear dens, animal habitats, the ocean and icebergs. This encourages creativity, problem-solving and spatial awareness.
Role-Play Station – Arctic Explorers
An area of the classroom will be transformed into an Arctic environment where children can pretend to be explorers. Props such as staffs and torches can be provided.
The area can include:
• White felt/material for snow
• Blue material for the ocean
• White-painted tinfoil for snowballs
• White-wrapped boxes for icebergs
• Teddies representing Arctic animals
Children can explore the environment, search for animals and use vocabulary from previous lessons, such as Arctic, iceberg, habitat, polar bear, walrus, seal, snow and explorer.Activity Set – Space and Aliens: Create an Alien
This activity will be carried out in pairs.
I will begin the lesson by reading The Smeds and The Smoos by Julia Donaldson to the children. Following the story, we will have an oral discussion about what the children think an alien might look like. We will explore questions such as: How many arms, legs, eyes and heads might an alien have? Would it have a nose, and what might it look like? What colours could it be? Would it have spots, stripes, spikes, fur or scales? Would it have skin? Would it wear clothes?
The children will then return to their tables and work with their partners to discuss and decide what they would like their alien to look like. They will also discuss how they could create their alien in 3D, thinking about which materials and techniques might work best for their design. They will have access to a variety of materials, including playdough, marla, clay, wire, tinfoil, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, felt, paper, fabric and wool, as well as any other suitable resources they would like to use.
Once they have agreed on their ideas, the children will sketch and design their alien on paper. They will consider its different features, colours, textures and how these could be represented using 3D materials.Hi Aoife,
I really like your idea of making marshmallow constellations, that activity will really engage the children.
The activity I have chosen is The Sun and Shadows. I have actually carried out this activity numerous times with previous Junior Infant and Senior Infant classes, and they always love it.
We started the lesson by discussing shadows and completing a KWL chart. I recorded what the children already knew about shadows and what they would like to find out about them. We then watched and listened to two songs on YouTube, My Shadow by Hey Kids and Shadow by The Dr. Binocs Show.
I then asked the children to become detectives and see if they could spot any shadows around the classroom. They went around with iPads to take pictures of them. After finding a variety of shadows, we went outside with chalk. The children worked in pairs or groups of three and took turns drawing and tracing each other’s shadows, as well as the shadows of other objects in the yard, such as trees, flowers and buildings.
When we returned to the classroom, we discussed the activity, including what they enjoyed and whether they had noticed anything interesting. Many of the children noticed that, as the sun moved, the direction of the shadows changed.
As a follow-on activity, the children worked in groups around the classroom using torches to experiment with making shadows. They explored how they could make the shadows bigger and smaller by moving the torch and the objects closer together or further apart.Hi Deirdre,
The children really love watching a video of the moon landing and pretending to be walking on it.
An inquiry – based lesson that I carried out with the children explored the question:
What is the best way to melt ice?
The topic we were learning about was winter, with a particular focus on polar bears and the Arctic region. We read the story Big Bear Little Bear by David Bedford. We discussed how snow and ice are formed and explored the different ways they can be melted. The children suggested different items we could use, such as a hairdryer, radiator, water and a child-friendly plastic knife. We then made predictions about how long we thought each method would take to melt the ice.
We carried out the experiment during Aistear, with the children working in small groups. I placed small animals in clear containers filled with water and put them in the freezer overnight. Each group then used a different method to try to melt the ice while I timed how long it took.
The children were very excited to see the ice beginning to melt. As the ice melted and they got closer to freeing the animals, their excitement grew. Once all the ice had melted and the animals were free, we came together as a group to discuss our findings. We talked about which method was the quickest and most effective way to melt the ice and compared the results with our predictions.Hi Aisling,
I love your idea of teaching Shadows and how an eclipse happens to Junior Infants. They always love learning new things about shadows.
I have made a list of songs, poems, art (paintings and ideas) and also books that are child friendly and connect us with the Night Sky.
Poems/Nursery Rhymes:
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
The Moon – Robert Louis Stevenson
Star Light, Star BrightSongs:
A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon by The Kiboomers
Starman by David Bowie
Across the Universe by The Beatles
Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra
Rocket Man by Elton JohnBooks:
How to catch a star by Oliver Jeffers
Papa, Please get the Moon for me by Eric Carle
The Darkest Dark by Astronaut Chris Hadfield
On the Moon by Anna MilbourneArt:
Vincent van Gogh — The Starry Night ~ Sponge – paint a starry night sky.
Create constellations using stickers or cotton buds dipped in paint.
Make a moon collage with silver paper.
Scratch – art night skies using colourful crayons and black paint.Hi Maria, inviting local wildlife groups into the school to run a workshop is a lovely idea that all children would really enjoy.
How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity.
To engage my Senior Infant children in exploring biodiversity, we will go on a nature walk around our school grounds and a nearby green space just outside our school. The children will be paired up, they will have a magnifying glass and a checklist of plants, birds, insects and trees that are found locally (I will have researched these before the lesson and activity). The children will observe and identify different items from their checklists. Through discussion and drawing, they will learn that different habitats provide food and shelter for living things.
To introduce light pollution, I will begin this part of the lesson with a book called ‘Owl Babies’ as owls are nocturnal animals. We will then discuss how these animals need darkness to find food and stay safe. In our classroom, children can compare a dark habitat with one lit by a torch, using toy animals to explore which environment would be more suitable. This simple investigation encourages children to think about how excessive artificial light can affect wildlife.
During the plenary the children will have a discussion about ways to care for local biodiversity, such as planting flowers for pollinators, creating bug hotels and turning off unnecessary outdoor lights.
Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
In Dublin, light pollution is increasing due to streetlights, illuminated buildings, and outdoor lighting. This creates a bright glow over the city, making it difficult to see stars and disrupting the natural habitats of nocturnal wildlife such as bats. Excessive artificial lighting also wastes energy and can affect people’s sleep by interfering with natural day and night cycles.
To engage my Senior Infant children, I will use a playful, inquiry – based approach. We will begin by reading a book called ‘The Sun Thief’ which is about day, night and changing daytime changes. It is a very engaging and funny story that the children will love. We will then discuss the difference between day and night. Then the children will compare pictures of a starry sky and a brightly lit area that is local to our school and ones the children will be familiar with. As their homework for the night/week I will ask them to take a short evening “star hunt” walk with their grown ups to count how many stars they can see and if they are able to take a photo and send it to be on Class Dojo. In class, the next day/week we will discuss their photos and how many stars they found. We will then explore light using torches and simple materials, discovering how covering a torch directs light more effectively. This hands-on approach develops observation skills, curiosity, and an early understanding of caring for the environment through simple actions like switching off unnecessary lights.
