Earth and Space

Project Overview

Space: the final fronteer!

Year 5 have been enthusiastically learning about space and earth this helf-term. The children have learnig plenty of new vocabulary and understood how Earth orbits the Sun and how our moon orbits Earth. They have become experts at knowing the planets’ names by remembering their own mnemonic! During the lesson, we took our learning outside and thought carefully about the sizes of each planet and related them to a piece of fruit and then put our fruit planets in correct order using their mnemonic. We also places the planets in a (very) scaled down version distances away from the Sun  to get some perspective of the size of our solar system.

After learning the waxing and waning moon phases, the children produced a great poster for our science display made from Oreo cookies – carefully carving the cream away to consolidate their learning of the different appearances of the moon. They particularly enjoyed eating the leftovers once the lesson had finished!

Finally, we investigated how night and day occurs on Earth. Children had to prove/disprove if the Sun moves around the Earth to get night and day. To do this, they worked in groups with a torch and globe and had some great conversations and thoughts about how night and day happens and discovered how and why the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. We now know that the Earth rotates on an invisible axis (anti-clockwise), whilst revolving (orbitting) around the Sun (which stays in the same place!).

What The Student Says

“‘M VEM J SUN’ I’ll never forget the order of the planets now!”

“I love science – it is so interesting. I love how we find things out when we do experiments”

“I have done some extra homework – can I read the facts I found out to the class?” 

“I want to go into space when I am older.”

What skills were developed?

The children have:

  • planned different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions

  • identified scientific evidence and used the information to support or refute their own ideas or arguments
  • learnt how to explain tricky concepts
  • worked in groups to achieve their learning objective
  • orally explained their findings to their peers

What The Teacher Says

We have really seen the children engaged with their learning during the Earth and Space unit. They have thoroughly enjoyed the practical aspects to consolidate their learning and this has really helped the information to be remembered.

We loved hearing the enthusiasm of the class when they were asking questions in the lessons – showing great scientific enquiry – some of which they answered themselves by researching in their own time!

– Miss Holmes and Miss O’Connell, Class Teachers.