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I think is a lovely idea! I have a big senior infants class and would love to try this a day that I have another adult as I think you would need it with a big infant class!
The activity I would choose for my class would be the rocket making activity.
I think that it would be a very effective, hands on lesson that would engage the children and be enjoyable.
I would introduce the lesson by reading the book “Maisy’s Rocket”. We would then discuss what we know about rockets, see what parts we can name, how they get to space etc..
I would then tell the children that today we are going to design our own rockets. We would use the interactive whiteboard to brain storm some ideas for what our rocket ship would look like. Each child would be given a sheet and colours to design their own rocket.
The children would then be given a variety of different materials; bottles, plastic cups, straws, sellotape, pipe cleaners, buttons, caps, etc.. and they would be given free reign to design a rocket ship based on their planning drawing.
I would give the children an opportunity to present their rocket ship to the class. I would then hang strings from the ceiling and display their creations as if they were blasting off to the moon.
These lessons would integrate across all the STEAM areas.
This sounds like a really fun and engaging lesson. Its something I would like to try with my class this year.
I would choose the hands on activities from this lesson. I think that hands on activities engage the children more easily and keep them interested for longer. The children will also be more likely to remember and get something out of the lesson if they have actually participated in it.
I would do the effects of heat and cold on ice cubes lesson. I think that the children would love predicting if the ice cube will melt or not and would love to see the activity in action.
I would start the lesson with the red and blue paper idea and end it when we come back in to the classroom and having the children go to the areas that align with the senarios the teacher gives them.
I would also link it with sese lessons on hot and cold and art lessons on texture and clothing.
The activity set I choose is :Space and Aliens, Special Life.
I would start my lesson by reading the book: “There’s an alien in your book” by Tom Fletcher. I think the children would love this book as it’s very interactive and get all the children involved. We would then have a class discussion on our thoughts about aliens.
I would then ask the children what they think an alien would look like and how they would make their own alien look.
Each child would be given a sheet of paper and drawing/colouring materials to create their own alien.
The children would then present these creations to the rest of the class explaining why their alien looks like they do.
To integrate maths we would count up how many eyes/legs etc each alien has. How many children coloured their alien green/red etc..
This is a lovely idea. I have family in Australia so this is something I might try this year. I think the children would find it very interesting!
The activity set I would choose would be The Moon. I would do a lesson based on the man on the moon. Firstly I would do a class mind map on the interactive whiteboard to see what we facts we know about the moon. We would then say the Man in the Moon rhyme together. I would then break the class up into small groups and give them the handout in the attached lesson plan. They would have a few mins to look at this and see what shapes etc they can see.
After this I would flip the lesson a little and ask the children questions such as: “Would you like to go to space?2, “does anyone know the name of a person who goes to space?”, “What do you think life in space is like?”
We would then watch videos online of the Irish astronaut Dr.Norah Patten answering questions about life in space to get a better understanding. After we would have a class discussion on what we have learned.
I would also extend this lesson by linking it with art and make moons and PE by playing planet based games.
I think the idea of using a tuff tray is great. As I am teaching younger kids I find that anything hands on tends to keep their attention longer. I will be trying out this idea!
An inquiry based activity that I have done with my classes in the past and they loved was the experiment to show how plants feed (drink water). We would start by discussing what plants need to grow and how they get that food. Each group needs a glass, a celery stalk with leaves and food dye. Add a few drops of the food dye to the water and put the celery stalk in.
We would then discuss what we think is going to happen. Leave overnight and the following morning the leaves will be after turning the colour of the food dye. The children complete a before, during and after the experiment worksheet.
The children are always fascinated to see that the plant actually drinks the water. I think it is very effective as they can actually see the change in the celery.
Hi, my name is Siobhán and I’ll be teaching Senior Infants.
My favourite space facts is that scientists believe that it can rain diamonds on planets such as Saturn and Jupiter!I like this idea. I live in a very rural area so I think it would be interesting for the children to learn how things are different in urban areas.
Research question: How can we combat climate change?
As I have 3rd class I would keep the research question broad to begin with and later develop learning further by splitting the class into different groups to focus in on one way that we have discussed.
I would introduce the lesson by showing some of the clips that have been included in this course such as the HOME video and the Paxi Climate Change video. I would then do a mind map on the board to brain storm with the children on the different ideas that we could do both at home and in school to help combat climate change.
I would also have the quotes from the HOME video on display to remind the children that they have the power to combat climate change: “We have the power to change. So what are we waiting for?”
I would get the class to create a plan of 5/6 things that we could d in school to combat climate change and put groups in charge of explaining/implementing and monitoring these changes in the school environment, such as: litter monitors, energy saving monitors, recycling monitors etc….
We could do surveys on the teachers and students and create a graph of our findings and re assess these after a month/term etc.. and see how we ae improving. This would also cross over into other areas of the curriculum.
I downloaded the Satellite Tracker App on my phone and these are the 5 satellites that have passed Ireland recently and what they are doing:
1. Intercosmos 25: Used to investigate the effects of streams of electrons and beams of plasma on the ionosphere and magnetosphere.
2. Cosmos 2219: Used in determining the exact location of radio-emitting objects and also their type, modes of operation, and how active they are.
3. Helios 1B: A surveillance satellite, which provides military imaging to France, Italy and Spain.
4. Terra: This carries five instruments that observe Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, land, snow and ice, and energy budget.
5. Ariane 40R/B: Used for earth observation, telecommunication, meteorology, science and navigation.
I actually found the app difficult enough to use therefore I think that it would be best suited to an older level class. I also could not find where to get the information on what the satellites were doing on the app so I had to use google. I played around with the app for a good bit but still could not find the information.