space
Activities for years 3 - 6
This is a good activity if you are teaching a class for a day or part of a day and they are studying a unit on space. These activities are unlikely to have been done in class previously and will complement what the children are learning.
Learning Goals:
- reading fluency practise;
- new content vocabulary;
- making connections;
- summarising;
- speaking and listening practice;
As a class, read this aloud: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/a-star-is-a-big-ball-of-gas-text.html The goal is to read accurately and with expression.
Watch this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg1-HFqt-6M
- Have a brief class discussion about the clip: what did the children find interesting?
- Ask children to volunteer to summarise the clip. Can they do it in one sentence? What was the clip about? Tell the children to think about how they would explain what the clip was about to a friend (How people in different countries thousands of years ago made up stories about the stars and what they were, meant, etc.)
- Does the clip remind them of anything they already know from their own experience or from another text? (making connections to selves, world, texts).
Verbal summarising is an important skill to master before children can learn to take notes and to summarise texts in writing. Note-taking is itself a difficult skill to master as it involves several complex cognitive processes working simultaneously.
To extend the above activity with an older class:
- discuss how to take notes - listen, summarise each section in your head, write down the main points, don't try to write everything down, etc;
- tell the children you will play the clip again (and perhaps a third time) and that you want them to write down what they think are the most important points;
- play the clip and get the children to share what they have written down;
- discuss as a class;