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Activity- Rockets for a Junior Infant class. This is the year group I will have next year so this lesson will be aimed at this age group.
- Cross Curricular links – PE: Sport darts/archery/Stability/things that fly through the air etc
- Art – Construction
- History – sequencing
- English – Book ‘Rocket the Space Giraffe’
- Math – measuring distance and how far the rocket mouse will travel.
- Aistear – creating rocket mice using the templates provided – cone shaped.
Trigger – I’m Building a Rocket by Kenn Nesbitt poem.
The teacher will build a sense of wonder for the child by posing a starter question – How might changing the force of the rocket make it go further/higher/slower? We will then explore how we might make a rocket go further by conducting an investigation which in this case would be by using different sized bottles. The children will have sourced varying bottles from home and they will use these when launching the mouse they made earlier. Questions asked during the investigation will include: What makes your rocket fly? What makes it come down again? How do you think a real rocket works?
Sharing/Data- the children will discuss distances measured, materials used and how force affects distance. The children will put a happy face on the board under either the big or small bottle to indicate which one made the mouse go furthest. We will then compare results.
Veronica, I really like the way you integrate the rocket making with Math by allowing the children to decide what instrument they would choose to measure the distance.
The activity that I choose is: Online Resources and Tools. As I will be working with a Junior Infant class this year I have decided to choose ways in which I could use the Resources and Tools for this age category
Marvin and Milo – we could do one of the Marvin and Milo challenges such as ‘To lift the water from the saucepan without sucking’, ‘Sew a Ice Cube’ / ‘Magic Balloon’ to learn how about properties of matter or the spinning egg challenge to learn about ‘Force and Motion’.
Stellarium-web.org – this would be used to show the children the different constellations and stars. We will also look at shapes and see if anyone can firstly spot the saucepan/plough, then the Great Bear and small bear (looking at the Ursa major and the Ursa Minor), the Drake, the Seven Birds etc. We would also look at the planets and discuss what we know about planets and where they are positioned.
ESA Education – The younger children can use the ESA website to play games such as ‘Space memory game’ and ‘Milky Way match’. We would also watch one of Paxi’s informational videos such as ‘how the Earth interacts with the sun’ or ‘The Solar System’ – asking a number of lower and higher order questions throughout.
Other resources I could use include ”Universe Awareness’ for example Universe in a Box and Space Scoop.
Hi Siobhan, this is a great idea. As a new JI teachers I was wondering how best to go about gathering resources for certain Aistear themes. People have so many toys and equipment at home that they would only be delighted to get rid of. I’ll definitely put out an email asking parents and its good to give plenty of notice too.
The activity I would choose is Space and Aliens.
The Trigger: The Smeds and the Smoos by Julian Donaldson
We will begin the lesson by delving into what prior knowledge the children have on space and aliens. We will discuss the different planets in the solar system and watch a short video/song on the planets on YouTube.
We will then focus our attention to the planet Mars and watch a short video on Mars and its landscape – ‘What if we had to live on Mars’ by Dr Binocs Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oupKhIPIh7g. We will discuss living on Mars and what it would be like for humans. The conversation will then progress onto ‘What do you think a Martian would look like? Do they think it would look like the ‘Smeds or the Smoos’? We will sketch and discuss our Martian and the similarities and differences compared to humans. We will then try and create the Martian that we have drawn using different materials.
English – The book ‘The Smeds and the Smoos’ will also feature in English as we explore the theme of the book and what the book might be about – describe how the families are the same/different.
Maths: The Martian figures will be used for early number work and classifying.
History: The sequence of the story.
SPHE – similarities and differences between people.
Art – create another planet that The Smeds and the Smoos could live on.
Lovely idea Eleanor, I think nursery rhymes are vital in infant years and I love how you integrated the theme across lots of different subject areas. It helps deepen the child’s understanding of the topic. Thank you.
I would choose the Activity: The Spherical Earth
The children will be asked to observe the moon at night as part of their homework.
The following day I would begin by engaging children with the phenomena of the moon such as a video of how the moon changes in appearance. We will look at comparisons/differences the moon might have with earth such as the spherical shape.
I will then compare the earth shape to a ball and the children will then watch as I drop a ball from a height. We will discuss how the ball drops straight down and not sideways. We will discuss why this might be – it is because it wants to go to the centre of the Earth and when we use the word down we really mean towards the center of the Earth. We will then look at a globe and see what direction toward the centre is. The children will then participate in the role play activity ‘The Ice Bear and the Penguin’ from Universe in a Box – realising that neither the bear nor penguin are upside down.
The children will then create a ‘earth mosaic’ using the template provided to them. Above the dashed line the children will draw houses, mountains and forests and below the line they will draw the seabed or mines or rocks. The children will then place their template on the floor and we will discuss ‘up and down’ and how there is no real ‘up and down’.
Hi Anne,
I agree, a good starting point is to gauge children knowledge on a topic. This was referenced in another course that I did and they stated that background knowledge strengthens thinking and provide the foundation for higher-order thinking.
An inquiry based lesson that I would try with my Junior Infant class is ‘waterproof materials’. Science would not be one of my stronger subjects and that is why I decided to do this course. I have Junior Infants next year and really want to try my best at improving my teaching in this area as I understand and appreciate how wonderful ‘Science’ is as a topic.
The Trigger: Rain by Carol Thompson. We will read the book and then discuss what might help us keep dry in the wet weather.
I will share the learning objective with the children and then we will explore different materials that might help to keep us dry and what might not.The children will be able to name a variety of everyday materials and which ones keep us dry in the rain – rubber, wax and plastic. We will then look at items such as wellingtons/waterproof jackets/umbrellas and discuss what material we think they are made from.
From there we will start testing whether or not an item, such as a small toy figure, is waterproof. We will wrap it in different materials we have at hand and place them in water to see which one is most effective. We will then take it out to see if it is wet or dry. We will record our findings by drawing a happy or sad face beside the image of the material on a sheet reflecting what material protected the figure from getting wet and what material didn’t. I will then introduce a teddy to the children. In groups of three the children will think and decide upon what materials the teacher should use when creating a jacket for teddy. The teacher will create a jacket using the materials suggested. We will then explore how effective the jacket is by pouring water over the teddy using a watering can – simulating rain.
Hi Paula,
I absolutely love this and a great way to engage Junior classes. I’ll definitely be using this as an intro in my JI class next year,
