Unit: To The Stars

Term: Autumn 1

Year: 5

©Cornwall Learning Publications 2013

Unit Overview

During this Unit pupils will be exploring the scientific elements of our planet in the solar system and the effects of our Moon and the Sun upon our planet. Pupils will imagine they are heading into space for several subjects and planning an expedition; so the classroom could set up as a mission control during the Unit. You could also explore hiring a planetarium dome in which stars or the solar system are projected. A range of websites will also be accessed to support elements of the course. NASA provides a range of on-line elements including video clips, audio clips and factual information. You may also have access to a model of the solar system or the phases of the moon, both of which would be useful. The computing element involves the learners in programming a lunar landing.

You can use more or less role-play in this Unit depending on the interest and enjoyment of the pupils and the enthusiasm of teachers and teaching assistants. It could work well setting up a mission control in the classroom for the class of space cadets planning their first mission around the solar system. The teacher can take the role of Cadet Trainer. The class should be happy for the teacher to move from alien to trainer to fellow cadet, if it is made clear with hats or other symbols which role they represent. Badges are great to signify roles and a set of Space Cadet badges to kick off the Unit would be fun. On the first day of the Unit they receive a visit from aliens from another solar system (TA/teacher) who have gone off course and crash landed and need help to exit Earth avoiding the Sun and the Moon after they have made extensive repairs and taken advice from the earth cadets. This provides a context for pupils learning about the universe for the aliens. This could both be the start and also draw the Unit to a conclusion: at the start the pupils examine what they know already and what they need to know to help the aliens. They take their own role-play space mission; stage a slow motion spacewalk repair of their space ship on the journey. For the conclusion they then share their new knowledge with the alien cadets who have been repairing their own ship and are ready to leave our solar system.

Links

©Cornwall Learning Publications 2013

To The Stars Pupils will be exploring beyond the Earth and consider where and how it fits into the solar system. They will also consider our Moon, the Sun and will explore the phases of the Moon and seasons.

Key questions that will be explored include:

How does day turn into night and night into day?

Why does the Moon sometimes look different?

Why and how do shadows change?

What planets are in our solar system?

How are they different to our planet and each other?

As part of this Unit, pupils will meet aliens, go on an imaginary journey into space in English, keeping a log of their journey and using audio and video clips to support the development of ideas and imaginations. They will look at astronauts’ fitness programmes.

The classroom could be transformed into a mission control during this Unit. Pupils can imagine getting ready and setting off to space. This can be recreated using a range of multimedia experiences (video, dimmed lighting sounds, smoky smells etc.).

You could also explore hiring a planetarium dome in which stars or the solar system are projected or holding a star gazing evening outdoors. There is free software available from astronomical websites which will display images of the night sky.

Outdoor Learning A visit to a space exploration centre, a planetarium or a visit to school by a portable planetarium

organisation or an astronomer

National and International links Links to international space station and NASA via their websites. These contain audio and video

links in addition to information and also have the function to allow you to listen live or post questions to be answered

Links to the world of work Links to role of astronaut, explorer or scientific aspects of space exploration and discovery

Links to keeping a journal for a journey, adventure or period of time

Also links to journalism and media through English activities

Links to learning and life skills Working with perseverance and concentration

Taking turns when talking

Decision-making and negotiating

©Cornwall Learning Publications 2013

Resources

Computing Computer and ‘Scratch’ (a free

program which can be used to link instructions together to make characters act in certain ways). An alternative to Scratch is Kodu, which is also free and can be used in similar ways.

Science Role-play props (badge, cap, scarf) Photos of Earth from space, globe or

Google Earth 3 balls of different diameters and 3

sticks Shadow sticks Torch Pictures of constellations and/or

programme such as Stellarium

Music Suggested space songs: Nigel Hess, ‘Space Songs’,

‘Phantasmagoria,’ ‘I’m the Urban Spaceman Baby’, ‘Build A Rocket Boys’ Elbow, ‘Can you hear Me?’ Christine Judge, ‘Goonhilly Round’ C Judge/S Pilley, ‘Singing Science’ Junior Songscape, Earth Sea and Sky A range of space music: ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Calling Occupants’, ‘To The

Moon & Back’, ‘Spaceman’, ‘Moon River’, ‘Walking on the Moon’, ‘Rocket Man’ ‘War Of The Worlds’, Soundtrack from ‘ET’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘Star trek’, BBC series ‘The Planets’ ‘2001, a ‘Space Odyssey’, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, Holst ‘The Planets Suite’ Planet info cards, books etc. for simple facts about the planets as

inspiration.

To the stars

Languages Class list Days of the week published song (optional) Photocopiable word lists cut up and placed in envelopes/small

containers, 1 per small group/table Lundi matin song – Mama Lisa’s World website/ YouTube cartoon Planets image flash cards Planets words flash cards Rhythm sound file (optional) Multi-link cubes or coloured sorting objects Globe/inflatable globe/ball Mini whiteboards Resources: Jean Michel Jarre music Jumbled sentence word cards including full stops ‘Mercure est une

petite planète froide’. Recommended book list:

Va-t’en Grand Monstre Vert! by Ed Emberley ISBN 978-2-877-67172-9 K Bidule 5 by Nick Butterworth

ISBN 978-2877673051

English Extracts from the Apollo 11 flight

log (available online) Soundtrack or music ‘Aldebaran’

from Enya’s ‘The Celts’ Explorer journals Archive news items of space

exploration/astronauts Alien costumes optional

Art and Design Large scale image of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry

Night’ painting. This is available to view on numerous websites. Thick paper or thin card Thick paint (acrylic is best or thicken

ready mix paints with PVA) in blues (brilliant, Prussian, cyan) white and yellows (brilliant, ochre, lemon) Flat or filbert ended hog hair brushes Plastic palette knives (thin glue spreaders

can be used – cut the sides of some Range of dark coloured papers, some

textured (blues and blacks mainly, string, card, glue, scissors, oil pastels Collograph materials – card to cut up,

string, PVA glue, thick base card to stick onto Paper and wax crayons to make rubbings

Summaries

©Cornwall Learning Publications 2013

To The Stars Art and Design Pupils explore the theme of stars through

Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ paintings They consider structure, colour texture,

and moods They develop painting, collage and

collograph skills They compare and contrast paintings by

Van Gogh

English Pupils use drama to develop ideas of

space travel They read and write space journals They also use newspaper reports and

develop interview skills They explore recording and sharing

factual events linked with space Diary entry Explanation text

Music Pupils create their own space-

themed music, using real and electronic instruments and sounds

They also listen, discuss, explore and perform their music. They also compare and contrast sounds and instruments used in Holst’s ‘Planet Suite’

Languages Categorise known words and investigate the characteristics of

a new language Learn the days of the week and link words to names of stars Develop accuracy in pronunciation by answering and asking

‘quelle est la date aujourd’hui?’ and singing date and planet songs

Look and listen for visual and aural clues Language Detectives

Construct simple sentences using a planet theme Pupils learn about the typical conventions of word order in the

French language Pupils apply grammatical knowledge to make sentences -

identify word classes - nouns and adjectival agreements Choose words and phrases to write a simple compound

sentence to describe a planet Prepare a presentation of their description about the planets -

a book, a song, an assembly

Applied Maths

Pupils read, write, order and compare numbers to at least 1 000 000

Pupils interpret negative numbers in context, count forwards and backwards with positive and negative whole numbers through zero

Pupils round any number up to 1 000 000 to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10 000 and 100 000

Pupils solve addition and subtraction multi-step problems in context

Pupils solve problems involving converting between units of time

Science Pupils explore how the Earth rotates and

how this explains day and night They learn to describe the movement of

the Earth relative to the Sun and the Moon relative to the Earth

They also explore the use of models to understand our place in the solar system

Computing

Pupils develop programming to move a character in space and interact with other characters in an increasingly complex way