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Space week
AISTEAR THEME:
Music: Reach for the Stars (S club 7)
Set up Role play area for ‘astronauts’ to fly their rockets/ land on the moon or planets, carry out experiments for the week.
Tuff Tray area with”moon sand’ and small world rockets, landers, moon rocks for measuring, etc.
Free/ Structured play: use Lego/ Magnet tiles to make a Moon Lander, Rocket, etcDay 1: -introduction To Space. Brainstorm what space means to the children.
Watch Apollo 11 – The First Moon Walk | Things You Wanna Know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbTaDOuSePk
-Read: “The Way Back Home” Oliver Jeffers. The children could pretend to be the astronaut and write to their alien friend.
-Guided Drawing activity: Draw an astronaut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjnRYnSEuG4Day 2:- Making a Mouse Rocket Experiment.
-Using the iPad to record expt. Use app “Book Creator” to record.
-Making paper planes to fly outsideDay 3: The Sun and The Moon
Day and Night Lesson similar to below
-Weather dependent: outdoor activity: Sun and Shadows.
-Story: Katie and the Starry Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26w8WJz_9dQ
-Art linked to this bookDay 4: -Planets: The planet song for kids
-Art activity: Planet Sun Catchers – Pre-K Pages (Munchkins and Moms)
-Our Earth/ What’s special about our earth/ Taking care of our earthDay 5: Pick a planet of choice, e.g, Mars. Learning about Mars, conditions on Mars.
-Design a Martian STEM activitySpace week
AISTEAR THEME:
Music: Reach for the Stars (S club 7)
Set up Role play area for ‘astronauts’ to fly their rockets/ land on the moon or planets, carry out experiments for the week.
Tuff Tray area with”moon sand’ and small world rockets, landers, moon rocks for measuring, etc.
Free/ Structured play: use Lego/ Magnet tiles to make a Moon Lander, Rocket, etcDay 1: -introduction To Space. Brainstorm what space means to the children.
Watch Apollo 11 – The First Moon Walk | Things You Wanna Know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbTaDOuSePk
-Read: “The Way Back Home” Oliver Jeffers. The children could pretend to be the astronaut and write to their alien friend.
-Guided Drawing activity: Draw an astronaut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjnRYnSEuG4Day 2:- Making a Mouse Rocket Experiment.
-Using the iPad to record expt. Use app “Book Creator” to record.
-Making paper planes to fly outsideDay 3: The Sun and The Moon
Day and Night Lesson similar to below
-Weather dependent: outdoor activity: Sun and Shadows.
-Story: Katie and the Starry Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26w8WJz_9dQ
-Art linked to this bookDay 4: -Planets: The planet song for kids
-Art activity: Planet Sun Catchers – Pre-K Pages (Munchkins and Moms)
-Our Earth/ What’s special about our earth/ Taking care of our earthDay 5: Pick a planet of choice, e.g, Mars. Learning about Mars, conditions on Mars.
-Design a Martian STEM activitySSE and STEM: We are currently evaluating how we teach STEM in the school.
-How it ties into oral language…what language the children need when engaging in STEM projects., e.g, in 1st class, the children have roles in their groups “Builder, Director, Engineer, Supplier”… they needed to understand what each term meant before they could take on the roles.
-STEM and ICT: we reviewed it in June and decided we want to engage more next year with Beebots and Scratch
-STEM in Aistear…we try and build in a STEM lesson into each topic. Following on from this course, I will be recommending the use of the Curious Minds framework.
I would like to think that we provide many opportunities to the children to be active in their learning. However, I can see that there are gaps, particularly in infants. This course has opened up a lot of resources and information for me around space and the stars especially, to enable more hands on learning which I will share with colleagues in September.
Siobhan, that sounds like the dream…to have astronauts visit the school. I didn’t even think that this was a possibility. I must look into this for next year. Thanks for sharing.
Design a Martian lesson
Trigger: We would read the book “The Way Back Home” by Oliver Jeffers. This book is about a boy and a Martian that both land on the moon, and help each other before they both return home. We would chat about the story, we would look at the illustration of the Martian, and where the Martian had come from.
This would lead us into learning a little about Mars./ Wondering what it’s like, I found this video on YouTube. Much of the info might be too difficult but I did like that the images are clear, showing the moon lander. Journey to Mars/ SciShowKids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAGGntBUYFM
This fun Outer Space:We are the Planets Song also introduces each planet briefly, in a rap style. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHAqT4hXnMw
When we had established that Mars is “The Red Planet” , is very cold and has huge dust storms, we would start thinking about what a Martian may look like….the same as in the book, or different? Children would sketch their own Martian. They would tell their partner about their design.
Children would be given the time to create their Martian. All children would sit in a circle at the end of the lesson so that they could talk about their creation, materials used. Children could say what they liked about each other’s work.
In a follow up lesson, children could create the model landscape of Mars as the setting for their Martians.
Super ideas, Sinead! The children would love them. I will add these ideas to my “Space” Aistear kit! Thank you
I would like to try ‘The Spherical Earth” lesson with my infants.
(In a previous art lesson, the children would have made their origami ship.)
As a class, the children would watch this video, to grab their attention..Earth | Space Song | Pinkfong Songs for Children
Another contributor mentioned the use of stations using a different topic, and I think this would work really well with this topic too.
Station 1 Children take their origami ship and and toy figure and place them on the group table, representing the flat earth. The children watch the ships “sail’ away (teacher led) from their figure, they will see the ship get smaller and smaller. Now the group will do the same activity with the globe to represent the round earth. The children will see that the ship gets smaller and appears to ‘sink’ as well because of the spherical nature of the earth.
Station 2: Children will work on the art activity: Earth Mosaics. Children will draw their own landscapes above the dashed line, the seabed and rocks below. When 16 are laid out together in a circle, the children will realise that up and down depends on their perspective.
Station 3 Children will engage with the “Up or Down” activity, using the globe and the toy penguin/ ice bear. I think this is a great activity, as this challenged me when I saw the visual! The children would love the dialogue between the animal at the North Pole and the South pole, esp when the teacher at the station would flip over the globe.
Station 4 Children will revise all their 3D shapes in a game/ activity
I love these ideas, Claire. Would be super for Aistear. Another thing you could do with the “Craters’ is have the children measure the diameter, and record it, maybe put them into order.
Hi, I’m Tracy and I’m teaching infants again next year.
One of my favourite space facts is that one million earths could fit inside the sun- and the sun is considered an average-sized star!
Inquiry based-learning: Forces/ Floating and sinking (Displacement idea from Irish Marine Institute)
Children love this activity. Trigger: linked to Green School/ MarineFlag/ Children have been learning about sea creatures…
Wonder: All the creatures we are learning about can float. I wonder why some things can float and other things sink? Brainstorm.
Explore the materials provided: e.g. cork, feather, stone, paper clip, coin, cotton wool ball, pencil.
Starter Q/ Prediction: Which of these will float/ sink? Why? Children may think that it is due to the weight of an object….
Conducting the investigation in groups. Does it sink straight away or does it take a little while? Does it float high up in the water? Record using smiley/ sad face. Were you surprised by what floated and what sank?
Apply the learning: Get the students to use plasticine to learn about displacement of water to float (flatten it)/ sink (rolled up in a ball). Also observe what happens to a balloon in water when it’s not blown up (solid mass) and blown up (expanded with air in it)
Children could also design and make their own boat from plasticine or any other material. (yoghurt cartons/ butter cartons, etc)
Hi Ciara
I am the same! Space was one of my Aistear topics this year. with Senior Infants. The children really loved it, but I wasnt sure myself how I could incorportate science and STEM more into it, at an appropriate level. Looking forward to learning more. I never knew astronauts can’t burp in space!
