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This sounds great and something I would be very interested in. We celebrate both maths week and science week as a whole school and I have participated in space week with my class, but the whole school participating would be the aim going forward. Through the integration of story, visual art, construction, drama, aistear and music it is accessible for all teachers no matter their confidence about teaching about space and would be a good start to develop interest in space week.
Rockets
I had a child in my class this year who was obsessed with NASA and rockets of all sorts so have used a number of the lessons outlined and have made balloon rockets, bottle rockets and paper rockets. The children enjoy all these activities. I began by reading ‘baby brains’ as a general introduction and stimulus to space.
Wonder: I wonder how one could travel to space? I wonder would a hot air balloon or aeroplane get you to space?
I then get children to design a rocket in pair/ groups yang anything available in the classroom. This gets them thinking about what shape would work best. The children then make their rockets a an art activity and discuss and comment on each other’s designs.
The next lesson we refer back to the best shape for a rocket and discuss why.
We then moved on to making balloon rockets using balloons and straws and the children predict how they will get the rocket to move. I got the children to thread the straws through one of either line of 2 strings which i has strung across the room (1 rocket balloon on each string)… the balloons are blown up and each child predicts which will travel further… they release the end of the balloon and we see who the winner is. We then discuss the results and any way we can get our balloon rockets to travel further.
We also made paper rockets and used prediction, discussion, collaboration to try to improve the distance the rockets could travel. More force and improved design were investigated.
The integration of science, geography, measures, oral language, construction, design and make make this whole theme very enjoyable.Hi Siobhan, I really like your idea of selecting one or 2 core scientific skills to focus on as a whole school. It can get overwhelming to think we need to work on all skills. By focussing on one or 2 at a time it develops others almost as osmosis, e.g focussing on observation will improve recording. As a DEIS school, we are advised to choose one area of literacy or numeracy in our DEIS plan so it makes sense to do the same in improving scientific skills.
Where do we live?
Homes
Trigger Story: Read the Story ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Looking at a poster of The Three Little Pigs we will discuss the story and why the pigs needed a home.Wondering: I wonder why people need homes? I will ask questions to specifically elicit the response of ‘shelter, safety, sleep, comfort’.
Exploring: using a poster on homes and list all the types of homes we can see discuss which of the homes we can see in our locality.
Exploring: I will give the children enlarged photographs of different types of homes – bungalow, detached house, semi-detached house, terraced house, 2 story house, farm house, cottage, caravan, igloo, teepee and flat. Each pair will get one photograph and will discuss together what type of a home this is, how it differs from their own home and what type of people they think would live in a home like this. They will then identify the home most similar to their own. Encourage them to name some of its features, such as the colour, what sort of roof it has, whether it’s a house or a flat, whether it has a garden or not.
Group work: As they describe the home they have we will make a collage of homes for display in the classroom.
Oral Language Game: ‘Where am I?’ I will give the children clues about where I am e.g. ‘I am in a round house with a triangular roof’ and the children must guess where I am. I will repeat and then get the children to work in pairs describing where they are.
Using photographs of the local area and aerial view of the town we will discuss what buildings we pass on the way home from school. I will highlight the key buildings in the town and ask the children do they pass them as they go home.
Using the map on the whiteboard we will draw a few of the journeys home (many children live in same housing estates).Finally we will discuss our favourite type of home and the children will use junk art to create a home their favourite teddy, doll, super hero, lego figure etc.
Applying learning and making connections: Link to materials and why certain homes suit certain areas better.
Great story to begin with. All children love this story and it will really engage them. Children love creating aliens. To extend their artistic flare you could make name aliens….they write their names horizontally and then creat they alien from that or you can print our their name in bubble writing and they develop their alien from there. Describing their alien is wonderful for oral language and use of adjectives and descriptive language. They could also create junk art homes for their aliens or create clothes for thieir aliens to protect them from the weather.
Lesson: Stars
Trigger:I would begin this lesson by reading the book ‘How to catch a star’ by Oliver Jeffers. There are many lovely pictures to stimulate discussion of what stars look like.
Wondering: I wonder how many stars there are in the sky? Brainstorm what the children know about stars.
Exploring: I would then use ‘lots and lots of stars’ activity from ESRO (lesson 13)
I would continue this with splatter painting of stars.
We would then use the counting sheet to count the stars and discuss that we need computers to count the stars as there are so many in the sky.
Invvestigate starter question: Do stars look different depending on where you are? Trigger questions – do we all see the exact same things? Look out wondow from your seat and discuss with partner what you can see.
Predicting: Place a box with differnt 2D shapes on each face in an area of classroom and ask children to predict will they all see same thing?
Conduct investigation: Get children to draw what they see from differnt areas of the classroom to describe what they see in different areas.. Discuss that depending on where you are things look different and same applies that star consellations look different.
Make their own 3d star constellations using playdogh, art straws, cotton buds etc. and move around classroom looking at them from different angles.
Applying learning and making connections: Use teacher pre-made plough model for observation and discuss that the plough looks differnt depending on where you are looking at it from.
Facts: Sun is largest star.Hi Gerladine, I love this lesson. The integration is fantastic and I can imagine all junior level classes loving it. They would be fully engaged at all times which is always a pleasure! Another sensory activity you could add is having a tray of four and some marbles, drop the marbles from a height into flattened flour tray, to create ‘creators’…then gently feel the difference in fell on the surface.
Activity set: The Sun and Shadows
Prompt:I would start the activity by listening to the song ‘My Furry Little Shadow’ from Sesame street. I would use this as a prompt to get the children to listen and tell me what Groover is talking about.
Wonder: I wonder why Groovers shadow is following him? I Wonder where Groover found his shadow? We discuss what the children know about shadows and if they have seen them before and when they see them.
Exploring: We would go outside and go on a shadow hunt (must be done on a sunny day). The children would record the biggest, smallest, longest and shortest shadows they can find.
Starter question: How do shadows form? I would elicit what the children they know about shadows already and how they are formed.
Predictions: I tell the children we are going to go and record our shadows outside at x o’clock and then redo them later in the day….record what you think will happen?
Investigating: We would go out side with chalk and I would get the children to work in pairs and trace over each others shadows. They will move around the yard discussing why some shadows look different. We will then go out later in day and stand in same position and retrace our shadows…
Sharing / Interpreting the results: We will look at the pairs of shadows of a few different people and discuss why the shadow have changed….the earth moves around sun, shadows formed when item blocks the sun light..
Applying learning: Using knowledge of how shadows are formed and using Bear challenge cards, try to make shadows longer and shorter etc using torch in darkened classroom.
Making connections: Earth spins around sun, hence shadows change. Watch shadow of school over a course of a day on the yard.
Finish this activity with a game of shadow tag which the children love.I love this type of activity. The children have such fun predicting and can get very competitive in who was correct. It really gives them a good sense of how to prove a theorpy when they carry out the experiment themselves and and focusses the mind on fair testing which is the basis of all scientific exploration.
Use of the curious mind framework for enquiry to teach about the sun and day and night.
The prompt: show a photo of the world , half dark, half in light.
Discuss and brainstorm what they see. What do you think is happening??
Wondering: I wonder whats happening on each side of the picture.
What happens differently during day and night – sleep, workers, using lights, animals etc.
Exploring: Using classroom items explore how they can get them to look light and dark in different parts of the classroom and yard.
Starter question? Why is it bright during the day and dark at night?
Predicting: with a torch as the sun, globe as the earth predict what will happen when the earth moves around on its axis.
Conducting investigation: Working in 3s, one child holds torch and pretended to be the sun shining on the earth and doesn’t move (sun doesn’t move), one child hold globe and moves around its axis and 3rd child records observations and shoults out daytime when torch is shining on the globe and nighttime when torch is facing away.
Sharing / interpreting data and results: Children draw their observations and discuss with other groups.
Applying learning: Explain why you have day and night to partner. Making connections: Discuss longer summer nights and shorter winter days and why this might happen. Move earth around the sun and discuss if this could make seasons.
If cousins in Australia find out when they winter and summer.