[Jennifer O’Mahony]

This is a fantastic plan Sinead with loads of ideas for cross curricular links.  I will definitely use some of these ideas when planning Space Week in my school.

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

Space week is something I wasn’t familiar with but will definitely introduce my school to and celebrate it in early October. The space week website has fantastic plans to guide teachers especially as this would be our first year introducing the celebration to the school. There are fantastic lesson plans for both Senior and Junior classes. Space Week would be a great addition to our STEM improvement plan. To celebrate Space Week a trip to Killarney Library would be a great idea for some of our classes as advertised on the space week website. They have tons of cool space-themed books and resources, colouring sheets, word searches and a lot more. Learning about space in a different environment would highlight the importance of the week for the children and also engage them more.

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

Hi Saoirse,

Great idea to use Milo and Marvin in role-play activities in the classroom.  The younger children would really engage with this.

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

I will use the curious Minds Planning for Teachers as I feel it’s a great resource to start developing STEM skills within my classroom. As this area is developing in our school having these resource to teaching skills Science skills both working scientifically and designing and making are essential. It also gave me a deeper awareness of the process of SSE in the school and how a STEM improvement plan work in a real life setting. I feel I will use drawing as a method of assessment for young children and the UNAWE documents on how evaluation may be carried out about space learning for these young children is a fantastic resource available. A lesson I will be sure to use with my class this year is the ‘ Real Spacesuit Space Technology’ lesson from curious minds.ie. This is a great lesson for Junior classes and a good introduction to science and encouraging a love of STEM in children. I enjoyed the lesson ideas on What clothes to wear from Esero resources . It was a very hands on lesson which the junior classes would really enjoy. The rain wind and storm story would be a great opportunity for cross curricular links to drama.

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

Hi Eleanor,

I love the integration of the topic across all of the subjects.  This gave me great ideas with my own class.

 

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

I will definitely be using the ESERO activity Lots and Lots of Stars. Children often find the sheer expanse of what we are talking about when referring to space difficult to understand but I think the jar activity is a great way to give them an idea of the reality of space and the vastness of stars in space. I also love the follow art activity of spatter painting and this is well linked to the science lesson It is a great opportunity for children understand there are billions of stars in the sky and how they are all different.
The UNAWE activities are great for younger children. I will be teaching these lessons to junior classes. Constellation Shapes activity is particularly appropriate for this age group and could be an extension of the jar activity above. These activities would be very fitting for science week and space week too as often it is difficult to find appropriate activities that are interesting and engaging for the younger classes.

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

I would use all the activity sets as they are all fantastic resources and ideas. I particularly loved the idea about the Earth mosaic and how it gave children a visual model to understand the spherical shape of the earth and how gravity works in order for us not to fall off it. This is done in a very child appropriate way that is fun and interactive. The children in my class group love art and they would engage in the Mosaic lesson as it incorporates it. I think the Youtube videos also give children a sense of the reality of apace, in particular the walk on the moon. This could also be linked to History lessons, Drama, singing – learning the names of the planets, art and writing. It can also be linked to reading stories about space. A fiction story for infants that I would highly recommend to gain interest is Whatever Next by Jill Murphy and a non-fiction junior book I would recommend is Star Stuff – Carl Sagan and the mysteries of the Cosmos by Stphanie Roth Sission.

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

I did a lovely science lesson with Junior Infants and based it on the story on Whatever Next. The children pretended to go to space like the bear in the story and we talked about what we might see in space. This made for great discussions and investigations on the solar system and what they might see from their ‘box’ and exploring the moon.

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

Hi Rebecca, this is a fab lesson.  I did something similar with my 3rd class a few years ago.  I also linked it to SPHE and the volcano was a metaphor for our feelings overflowing at times.

Love the idea of the jar as we made the volcano in art with paper mache and the project ran over time overall.

[Jennifer O’Mahony]

Hello, My name is Jennifer Falvey and I am in SET. I mostly teach the junior end of the school. My fun fact is that Jupiter and Saturn are made of gas and don’t have a solid surface. My neurodiverse Junior Infant who is obsessed with space told me this and many more space facts. I can’t wait to go back in September and impress him with some information I will learn on this course. He’ll be absolutely delighted I can converse with him on this topic 😉

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