Curriculum Exemplar: Science & English
Star Gazing Year 5/6 Spring 2021
We want to bring the children’s learning to life with real life experiences and through meeting experts. We want to give them the opportunity to respond to new knowledge in personal, creative ways.
Year 5/6 had a ‘stargazing’ evening as part of their solar system topic. What would once have been something special on our school field became its lockdown equivalent: on Google Meets and in our own back gardens. Nick Howe, an astronomer, engineer and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society spoke in the meeting about black holes, supernovae, asteroids, comets and space junk. Once it was dark, the children went outside using sky maps and apps and looked up. They saw Orion, Betelgeuse, Sirius, Mars, the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades Constellation, Ursa Minor and Major and The Plough and they got cold toes. Then they wrote some poetry.
Here are some of their poems:
———-
Look out at deep space,
the stars glitter, the moon reflects,
things explode while others collapse,
some shoot others drift but they all are in one place.
Deep space.
———-
A dash of glitter on the velvet sky are heaven twinkles they say.
As tired stars walk home ,loved ,safe ,respected .
Dark ocean seep through heavens floorboard
——–
Clear fresh air that had the scent of snow,
Wrapped up only in my coat and boots.
Shorts perhaps not the garment to wear.
Taking a moment to gain my night vision
before allowing the beauty of the night to overwhelm my senses.
Clusters of stars forming constellations that danced across the night sky
all entwined together in the most stunning piece of art
i have ever laid my eyes upon,
I look up to the light bringers of the dark
the secret keepers, the dream inspirers
all shimmering freckles of gold
in the deep indigo of the night ocean.
mars, a loner in the middle
and Betelgeuse like an enormous diamond dwarfing everything in its proximity
I wanted to reach my hand tall
stroking the night sky
allowing stars to ripple through my fingers
lost in the dizziness of billions upon trillions of celestial beings.
And as I stood still on that cold fresh night
I found myself wonder
will this sky full of ancient wonders be the same one i look on when i am old?
————
An injection of light in an endless world of darkness.
Breath-taking.
Stunning.
Undeniable.
Galaxies like swirls in steaming hot chocolate.
Colourful.
Unique.
Fascinating.
———-
We wrapped up warm
We crept outside to the abyss of darkness
All we heard was two owls calling through the trees
And in the abyss
shining stars