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We haven’t in the past embraced Space Week as a whole school. It has always been left to individual teachers to engage with it – so maybe this is the year! I love the Renmore school’s rocket themed space week and I think it might be a simple way to introduce Space Week and to engage teachers and pupils in fun and exciting activities. It would generate huge excitement especially the launching of the various rocket designs.
https://www.stem.org.uk/system/files/elibrary-resources/2019/02/ESERO%20-%20Space%20Week_booklet.pdf
This ESERO booklet is a fantastic resource. It provides a step by step guide to organising a week of activities for a whole school – from selling the idea to the school leadership team, to creating a plan, implementing the plan and even provide suggestions on how to review the week when it is all over.The resource pack provides a simple general themed guide for the week for a whole school but also has a more detailed guide for the theme Stars and Astronomy. Picture books for example “Older than the stars” by Karen C Fox and Nancy Davis are used as a stimulus for many of the sessions with links to an online version of the book. It provides both creative activities and science focused enquiries linked to the theme. It also suggestions way to involve families in the week thus promoting positive attitudes towards science and encouraging them to get involved in the learning also. It is a cross curricular plan and even “the silly assembly games” could easily be adapted and used for fun PE lessons in the younger classes during the week.
Looking forward to a great week this year!
Thanks for sharing Renmore’s rocket activities. It would be great as a whole school activity during space week. Each year group could be encouraged to explore rocket design and present their models to the whole school. Keeping the simpler designs for the younger classes and the more intricate/challenging designs for the senior classes.
Thanks again Frances.I didn’t realise that there is more than one adventure in the art gallery with Grandma, Katie and Van Gogh. Thanks for sharing the link to Katie and the Starry Night- must try and get a hard copy. I read a story everyday to my language groups in Junior Infants- this would be a great one to include.
The activity set “Where do you live?” provides many lesson ideas to explore a broader integrated theme of homes with young children. A thematic approach incorporating the theme Sa Bhaile, science, geography, art, global citizenship and global goals could be explored over a couple of weeks.
in my role as link teacher for the Junior Infants I think there are many opportunities to explore this theme through play and in language groups.
Describing a home/house/ shelter using a selection of pictures from different sources could be used to initiate conversation. I have kept all the Trócaire Lenten photo packs that were provided over a number of years and they are great for exploring this theme as well as the UNICEF book “ A life like mine” helps young children to understand what it means to have a shelter.
This could be further explored through play and art the children drawing and creating a house/ shelter for a particular climate or animal. exploring why some materials and designs might be more suited for different needs and climates.
This is another great resource that I have used in class.
To include the space theme the question “Could we live on Mars?” and ESA’s lesson
“Moon shelter- investigating different shelters on the Earth and space” (a simple version) with a lot of scaffolding would be very stimulating and exciting for young children even within SEN. It is a theme that could easily be used across all age levels within SEN particularly with ASD children who might have a specific interest in the area of space.
This is looks like a great integrated theme that could be covered over a couple of weeks. It would also be a great opportunity to introduce young children to the Global Goals (SDGs)
There are some nice ideas on this website.
There are so many great picture books suggested in the previous posts which I look forward to using. The picture book that I have used for the theme of Aliens is “Here come the Aliens” by Colin McNaughton. The illustrations are fantastic and stimulate great conversation about what an Alien might look like. I have also used MSIP – MarsActivities from the Mars Education Program Jet propulsion laboratory Arizona. Lesson 5 of the booklet Searching for life on Mars has great activities including Imaginary Martians and Mars Critters are very suitable for use with young children. I have this activity booklet downloaded to my computer but I can’t seem to be able to find the original source to share on this post.
I am in Sen currently and linked with the Junior Infants again. I am looking forward to Space Week this week and plan on exploring the theme of Space and Aliens using some of the ideas for matching, sorting and creating Aliens within the small groups that I will be working with.
Frances those Alien resources from tiger are great, thanks again for sharing them.
Elizabeth’s constellation quilt – what a great story Frances and so suitable for infants. thanks for sharing it.
I have used some of these lessons before in class and the children have loved them. We explored shadows in the yard using chalk to draw around the children’s standing position and the point where their shadow ended. We returned to the yard at midday and again in the afternoon and marked the new shadow end and drew conclusions as to what had happened. The children came to the conclusion that the sun had moved- the day and night video helped explain what really happens!
This year I am in SEN again linked to Junior Infants and I think the lesson Spherical Earth could be used very effectively – making the origami ship might be a bit too challenging but a small toy ship would be a simpler alternative. Watching the ship sail away from the figure would create an opportunity to describe what is happening by simply describing what they see!This lesson could be followed up with the lesson 2.2 up and down. The visual aspect of the lesson, the starting dialogue and the follow up earth mosaic would create a valuable opportunity for language development and in the process an understanding of up and down in relation to the Earth.
I love using picture books to promote critical thinking especially in relation to aspects of space. I haven’t read the book roaring rockets but I will put it on my list. Thanks.
Hi there,
My name is Celine and having taught mainstream for almost 30 years I opted to move to SEN last year and will be there again this year. I am linked with the Junior Infants. Although I enjoyed the change, I missed using inquiry based activities to trigger the children’s curiosity about aspects of space, science and their environment.
A fact that I find fascinating is that when viewing Venus, it appears to spin backwards.
I have used some of Frances wonderful lessons previously at different class levels and both myself and the children have learnt so much from our explorations and wonderings. I have found the DPSM framework document invaluable in planning these lessons.
I am hoping that during this course I will find inspiration as to how I could use some inquiry based activities with Junior Infants in SEN. Last year I explored materials with one of my language groups- it was a simple grouping activity based on texture. I think that this year I might try the approach outlined in the Mighty Materials framework and use a more exploratory approach starting with a simple trigger questions based on a situation “Oops I’ve spilled my drink – I wonder which material would I use to mop it up?”
The DPSM promoting inclusion section will be helpful to focus me on how best to support the children.
