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Show and tell at an infant school

nicks90

By nicks90
in The Astro Lounge

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nicks90

nicks90

Posted
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my little girls school is doing 'Space' as its winter project for Year 2 and the teacher found out i was in an Astro club and had a scope etc - so I ended up getting pursuaded to come in today with my clobber and do a little show and tell and talk to 40 kids (6 and 7 year olds).

Damn pretty young female teachers and their pursuasive ways!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so anyway, just thought I;d drop a note in here to say if you are ever asked by a junior or infants school to go and talk to them about astronomy - DO IT. It was brilliant fun and the kids loved it!

Started off with a quick chat about what telescopes are, showed them my 70mm frac and the sort of stuff you can see in a scope, obviously they were all interested in aliens and planets. I had been forewarned this would happen, so i did a "whats the weather like" on each planet. Had a projector and showed a picture of each planet which they had to name and then guess what the weather was like if they visited on a space ship. The kids loved that!

then we all went outside to see my 12" dob set up in the play ground. They were gobsmacked!

luckily the sun was playing ball and was nice and bright and cloudless - so i put the solar sheet on the 45mm aperture hole in the cover and let them all trail by and have a gander at the sun spots. Kids all thought it was very cool to see the surface of a star, blew their minds a bit. Then all the teachers did the same and I am not sure who was more impressed, the kids or the adults!!!

Then to lighten the mood and get them all involved and moving about (they're 6 and 7!) I did the "if the sun is this big beach ball, how big would mercury be etc etc" and got kids to be planets and shoot off the right distance across the school field waving a grain of rice about and sweetcorn and grapes etc. Shame the school field wasnt big enough to go past Saturn, as it would have been bad form to send a 6 year old across the main road and into town to represent the relative distance of Uranus and Neptune i suppose whilst waving a grape in the air.......

The kids marvelled at how small the planets looked at those distances and I think it really got them to realise some perspective. Funny thing was I had 2 of the teachers asking for links to that exercise so they could do it again themselves next year! hahahaha

overall I was there with the kids for an hour and it flew by. they all laughed and had a good time and asked loads of really good questions - one little girl even knew Neptune has the fastest planetary winds and another that black holes lived in the middle of a galaxy! 2 even knew some of the names of moons around Jupiter and Saturn. Surprising what the little bleeders know by the age of 7. 

Violet wasnt allowed to answer questions though, as that would have been unfair - as she`s spent enough time at my scope over the past year and knew most of it already - being a veteran of Kielder obsy as well. But she was very proud of her daddy coming in to school and I am sure she will be basking in reflected glory with the other kids for a bit, hahahaha

I got a real buzz from doing it, and I highly recommend anyone goes to a school and lets the kids poke about and ask questions, they are very easily inspired and they could be the next Edwin Hubble!

anyway, sorry for the ramble - just wanted to share!

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Timbo

Timbo

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Hey Nicks90,

Nice ramble and interesting to know how you taught relative size and distances of the planets to Yr 2.

Where did you get your lesson plan from!?

I do teach Yr 2 for my day job and was impressed!

Tim

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Macavity

Macavity

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Great Stuff. Our local Astro group in regularly "invaded" by the (unisex?) Scout Group - Astro Badges whatever?  :p

As a kid, I was never into Scouting. I am never sure QUITE what these youngsters think of us "old guys" (gals). 

Astronomy may not appeal to a majority. Gotta to be better than watching DAD wash the Car every Sunday. :D

During my time left, I might increasingly steal myself to give "talks" to people...

Socrates died accuse of "perverting the young"? Ah, the EVILS of Science? :p

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kirkster501

kirkster501

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Well done!  I did the same last year when I took my CPC 1100 in to the school assembly in front of about 140 of the little ones at my daughters school.  They loved it.  They all wanted a go and were fascinated by the mirror in the back of the scope.

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nicks90

nicks90

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Thanks for all your kind words, it really was good fun!

Timbo, this is the link I got the idea from - I just changed the ingredients! http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html

And the weather game was based on the programmes I saw on discovery channel about solar system weather, I just made it a bit more accessible by working out how long if would take for an ice cream to melt on Venus, or how many coats you would need to wear on mars etc. Have to admit it did take me an hour or two to plan and pinch some piccies off here to show in the background as I did it. So many thanks to Olly for some DSO pics and various others for planetary pics (and the odd one from Hubble).

I was just so glad the sun was out so they could have a good look at something, so they could all go away having a) looked through a 'real' telescope B) seen something very unique - our sun!

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