STE for Senior Infants

What your school gets

Everything a teacher needs to teach STE for Senior Infants this year.

In class

36 lessons, ready to teach Each one planned step by step, taught from the interactive whiteboard. 11 interactive activities across the course.
Try the first lesson: Wonder and Question

On paper

Pupil Investigation Journal Science, Technology & Engineering

Teacher Resource Book Science, Technology & Engineering

Investigation JournalA page for 18 of the lessons, for each pupil to record their work.
Look inside
Teacher Resource BookThe whole course laid out for the teacher, lesson by lesson, ready to print.
Look inside The sample lesson's pages

The whole books come with the course, in each class's Resources.

For planning

Yearly plan See the first two pages
Fortnightly schemes See the first two pages
Curriculum coverage See the first two pages
Programme progression See the first two pages

Included with the course, in English and in Irish. Teachers find them in their class's Resources.

The curriculum it covers

Every lesson is mapped to the specification. This course teaches 11 of the 12 outcomes for this class.

NCCA STE Education Specification (2025)

Nature of STEM 0 of 1 outcome

Living things 3 of 3 outcomes

Materials 2 of 2 outcomes

Energy and forces 3 of 3 outcomes

Technology 2 of 2 outcomes

Engineering 1 of 1 outcome

See every outcome

Curriculum Area

Outcomes

Nature of STEM

S1.1.1

Living things

S2.1.1 S2.1.2 S2.1.3

Materials

S3.1.1 S3.1.2

Energy and forces

S4.1.1 S4.1.2 S4.1.3

Technology

S5.1.1 S5.1.2

Engineering

S6.1.1

Tap any outcome to read it. The coloured ones are taught in this course. The curriculum does not include official reference codes for individual learning outcomes, so we have assigned a code scheme to make it easier to identify and track coverage.

The course, module by module

36 lessons in 5 modules. The lesson marked Sample opens in full.

1 Living Things: Our Body, Growing up, Senses and Sorting Nature 9 lessons · about 5 hours

Children build on what they can already do (notice, name, sort and draw) to name more body parts and their jobs, tell the full baby to grown-up to elderly life story, use their senses to ask 'I wonder...?' questions, look closely at minibeasts, and sort plants and animals with a stated reason. Play-led, joyful and recorded mostly by drawing.

Wondering and Our Wonderful Bodies
1 Wonder and Question Sample lesson
2 More Body Parts We Can Name
3 The Jobs Our Body Parts Do
4 Our Life Story: from Baby to Grandparent
Growing up and Our Senses
5 Our Senses Ask Questions
6 A Close-looking Nature Walk
7 Looking at Minibeasts Up Close
The Natural World Outdoors
8 Sorting Plants and Animals with a Reason
9 What Helps Plants and Animals Flourish?

2 Materials: Naming, Properties and Changing Materials 7 lessons · about 4 hours

Children name materials and what they are made of, describe and group their properties, notice which are waterproof and which material suits a job, and explore changing materials by mixing, squashing, bending, tearing, and watching the teacher freeze and melt (warm, never hot, no flame).

Naming Materials and Their Properties
10 Materials and Their Names
11 Describing Properties
12 Waterproof or Not
13 The Right Material for the Job
Changing Materials
14 Mixing Materials
15 Changing Materials: Squash, Bend, Tear, Stretch
16 Freezing and Melting

3 Energy and Forces: Energy That Works, Forces, Float and Sink, and Magnets 8 lessons · about 4 hours

Children notice that energy makes things work and that different things go in different ways, feel how pushes and pulls move things, guess-then-find float and sink at the water tray, and have lots of fun with magnets, guessing what they will pull, sorting magnetic from not, and spotting magnets at work.

4 Technology: Helpers, Algorithms, the Floor Robot and Scratchjr 7 lessons · about 4 hours

Children sort everyday 'helpers' by who they help and by digital or non-digital, then meet computational thinking: steps in order (algorithms), patterns and bugs, a floor robot to a target, and a gentle ScratchJr taster on tablets.

Technology That Helps Us
25 Technology That Helps Us
26 Digital or Not Digital
Algorithms, Patterns and Bugs
27 Steps in Order: First Algorithms
28 Patterns and Bugs
29 Floor Robot to a Target
The Floor Robot and Scratchjr
30 Meet ScratchJr
31 ScratchJr: Make Our Character Do a Little Dance

5 Engineering: Find a Problem, Plan, Make and Share 5 lessons · about 3 hours

Children deepen the design process at infant lightness: notice a problem someone has, build stronger and steadier, make a boat that carries a load, then run one short two-lesson make-and-share project for a classroom helper, their first taste of keeping a build between two sessions.

Spotting Problems and Building Strong
32 Wide Feet Stand Up
33 Stronger and Steadier Builds
34 Make a Boat That Holds Things
Project: Make a Helper for Our Classroom
35 Plan and Make Our Helper
36 Show and Tell Our Helper

What pupils learn

This course introduces young children to core STE concepts through hands-on exploration of the human body, senses, growth, and the natural world. Pupils investigate materials and their properties, observe how materials change, and explore energy, forces, floating, sinking and magnets. They learn simple algorithms, control floor robots and ScratchJr, then apply engineering skills to identify problems, design, build and test practical classroom helpers.

By the end of the course, pupils can

Identify and name major external body parts and describe the jobs they perform using movement and matching activities.
Order the stages of human life from baby to elderly and match each stage to typical abilities.
Sort living things into plants and animals, then further sort animals by observable features such as having legs or not, explaining the sorting rule.
Name common materials including wood, plastic, metal, glass, fabric and paper, and group them by observable properties such as rough or smooth, waterproof or not.
Demonstrate how materials can change shape by squashing, bending, tearing or stretching, and describe the changes observed.
Distinguish between pushes and pulls as forces, and investigate how a bigger push affects how far an object travels.
Predict and test which objects will float or sink in water, then sort them accordingly.
Predict, test and sort objects as magnetic or non-magnetic, then identify everyday jobs that magnets perform.
Create and debug simple algorithms using picture cards and floor robots to achieve a target.
Build a short sequence of code blocks in ScratchJr to make a character move, spin and pop.
Identify a small classroom problem, draw a plan, construct a simple model to solve it using available materials, and explain how it works to others.