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Assuming we have been covering the topic of space, including aliens and other sub topics.
Also basing this lesson on my Special education setting.
Assuming we ended our last lesson by placing our alien figurine characters into trays suitable for freezing, and after having added water to the trays, questioning the children about what will happen, what it will look like if we place them in the freezer over night. Record all responses.
Learning outcome: Explore the effects of heating and cooling on water.
Introduction: gather the children in a circle, dramatically explain that our aliens have been captured and it is up to us to free them. Reveal our frozen aliens. Together we will sing a song about helping to rescue our aliens. (teacher created)
up up and away, to space we must go
as fast as we can, there’s no going slow,
our aliens have been captured, in cold, hard ice,
we need heat to rescue them
we must be precise
*****
fetch the warm water, and wait ’til you see
the aim is to set our alien friends free.
melting melting the ice slips away,
hip hip hoary we have saved the day.
****
We will act out the lyrics of the song, singing it through three times.
Main activity:
Then teacher will sing it through acting it out by actually melting the ice with warm water (set up earlier) the children will observe this time. Then each child will be set up for rescuing their own alien whilst singing the song.
Take before and after pictures of the kidnapped and rescued alien. Print them off for the children. ask the children to explain what had just happened in their own words. Using key words the children will sort vocabulary under the correct picture comparing and contrasting the experiment.
cold, warm, ice, melted, trapped, free, frozen, heat
Conclusion: Compare the responses the children gave in the previous lesson to what the actual result of placing the trays in the freezer was. Discuss what the children’s experience of seeing things like this happen before was. Did you ever make ice at home? did you ever see ice in Winter time, how did the ice go away in Winter time? etc.
Display comparison posters in the space themed area of the classroom.
This book sounds great. Reminds me a bit of the Wizard of Oz a film the children nowadays aren’t overly familiar with #theres no place like home!
I use how to draw all the time. My children love the guidance. it also means by the end of the drawing because its done in such small steps it actually somewhat resembles the original drawing. I always find the children are so chuffed with themselves in comparison if they were given free reign with their imagination. I know I myself always liked to have something to go by.
Love this idea. Kids would absolutely get on board with this. I know our kids would love it. great idea to link it with home and to do the night sky with parents/guardians. I love home school linkage- I always ask parents to email me photos so all the children can see what the other children have been up to.
Oh wow, that wouldn’t have entered my wildest imagination- ha a real life astronaut- sounds so bizarre. I can only imagine what that did for the children. fantastic!
Choose one of the activities or activity sets outlined in this module:
This lesson is based on the assumption that we have been covering the topic of weather in the classroom. It is also based on my special educational needs setting.
*Hands-on classroom themed activities*
Learning objective: To name and recognise different types of weather conditions.
Introduction: we would sing the weather song that easily breaks down the weather in Lámh signs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADfEZt7HumQ
After singing the song the children, in pairs, will ask their friends what’s the weather like today using the Lámh signs from the video.
Activity 1: Teacher asks the children to lightly jog around the room, when teacher calls out a weather sample the children stop and do the Lámh action. (sunny cloudy rainy windy snowy)
Activity 2: We would then make a sensory bottle. Asking the children what materials do they think could best represent the different types of weather.
Cotton balls- clouds
glitter-rays of sunshine
blue water- rain with small blue beads for rain drops
feathers- wind
snow-small white foam balls
Ask the children to shake the bottles gently to see how the different materials interact inside. encourage students to describe what they see.
Add in a music element whereby the children have to move and shake the bottle in rhythm to the music. We could sing “Mr. Sun sun Mr. golden sun” and “Rain rain go away…”
Conclusion: I would wrap up the lesson with a calming activity. I would do a guided visualisation where the children close their eyes and imagine themselves in a peaceful weather scene, a sunny day at the beach changing to a gentle rain shower in the garden, a winter wonderland surrounded by glistening snowflakes gently falling from the sky, the crunching sound of the snow on their feet and the cold crisp air on their cheeks etc.
Brilliant Laura, love these ideas and what a great way to explain to the children about the penguins.
Pity I’m not in school Frances, we have a superb space theme display in our junior hall. The teacher who created it with her class is extremely artistic. I’d need to see it to even be able to explain it to you as I cant think off hand the materials used, I’d need to take a closer look. Its quite large.
Wonderful idea Siobhan, great way to link parents but yet save time, effort and money yourself. Schools can lack storage and I find so many good resources get thrown out that teachers worked tirelessly to create.
Oh I love these ideas, they would be brilliant for my setting, but also how fun for the younger children. Thanks for sharing.
Yes I agree the books are invaluable. Especially for a concept such as a Martian, as we completely have to rely our imagination for this. So it’s good to have books as reference and to lend some guidance. Some great book ideas in this thread. It will come in useful.
Activity Set: Space and Aliens
This lesson is taught out assuming we have been covering the topic of space and aliens. I’m also directing this lesson to my SET setting.
I feel drawn to having to do a lesson on space and aliens- how fun!.
Introduction:
I would set up a space exploration station. Here, the children can touch different textures like smooth foil representing spaceships, soft cotton balls as clouds, scrunched foil as craters, sensory bottles filled with glitter and shiny stars, cuddly toy aliens, sandpaper to represent the moon’s surface. As the children explore the box we will engage in lots of talk and discussion reinforcing the vocabulary of space.
- what would we see if we went to space?
- what do you think aliens look like?
- are we able to travel to space?
- how could we travel to space?
Main body:
Create an alien friend who has come to visit you on earth.
what would they look like- provide various materials including googly eyes, pipe cleaners, match sticks etc.
- what shape, colour size would they be?
- what food would they eat?
- what liquid would they drink?
- where would they live?
- what would you call them?
- what’s their favourite activity?
- how do they travel? walk, crawl, fly, hop?
Once completed the children could engage in pair work, whereby their alien friends meet. What would they talk about? what questions would they ask each other?
Conclusion:
I would close the lesson with a yoga session- based on going to meet an alien in space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kanagmDoZw
Next lesson: we would create a diorama for the alien using a shoebox and base it on the information given in this lesson about where they said their alien would live.
