Outer Space: Day Five

Field Trip!

Take a trip to your local planetarium or space museum. If you're lucky enough to live near the Space Center in Houston or Florida, this would be a perfect week to go!

Outer Space: Day Four

Stars

Read books about stars and constellations. Get out the children's "telescopes" and look up into the stars. Display pictures of constellations and discuss them with your children.

Sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" with the children.
Twinkle Song

The Twinkle Song

(sung to LONDON BRIDGES)

Twinkle, twinkle little stars
Friends of Jupiter and of Mars
I'd like to take you home in jars
And watch you twinkle, twinkle

If wishes really do come true
I'll wish a wish tonight on you
In bed I'll smile the whole night through
And feel myself twinkle, twinkle

My Own Constellation

Materials:

• Paper
• Paint or stickers
• Chalk

Directions:

• Give all of your children black paper. Let them either use paint to make stars or use star stickers. Finally they can connect the stars with paint or chalk and make their own constellation

Star Games:

1. Cut several different sizes of stars out of white or yellow posterboard. Let your children take turns arranging the stars from smallest to largest or from largest to smallest.
2. Cut stars out of red, yellow, and blue posterboard. Mix up the stars and place them in a box. Then have the children sort the stars by color into three piles.
3. Cut pairs of stars from white or yellow posterboard. On one star in each pair, write a numeral and on the other star, draw a corresponding number of dots. Mix up the stars and invite the children to find the match-ups.


Constellation of Holes

Materials:

• Black Paper
• Hole Punch
• Various Other Art Supplies of Your Choice

Directions:

• After showing your children several pictures of constellation, give them a piece of black paper and a hole punch. Tell them to make holes everywhere they want a star to be in their very own constellation. You can then let them add anything else they want to the picture. To make the constellation more visible you can put a yellow piece of paper behind it or just hold it up to the light.

Stars in a Jar

Put syrup, glitter, blue water, and star confetti in a baby food jar or Zip Loc Bag and glue the top shut. Your children will love this suspended space station.

Coffee Can Galaxy

Put black paper around the inside of a large coffee can, then put three marbles (or one ping pong ball in a mixture of white paint and glue. Next take the marbles out and spoon them into the coffee can. Have one of your children shake and roll the can. Finally take the paper out and let your student put stars on the orbit path created by the marbles.

Stars: Set out star cookie cutters and pour white tempera paint over flat sponges placed in shallow pans. Have your children press the cookie cutters onto the sponges and print white stars on pieces of black construction paper.

Outer Space: Day Three

To the Moon!

The closest object in space to Earth is the moon. Today, we will be taking a trip there to learn more about Earth's nearest neighbor.

Orbiting Round the Moon
(tune: She'll be Coming 'round the Mountain)

We'll be orbiting round the moon, yes we will

We'll be orbiting round the moon, yes we will
We'll be orbiting round the moon
We'll be orbiting round the moon
We'll be orbiting round the moon, yes we will

We'll be landing on the moon, yes we will
We'll be landing on the moon, yes we will
We'll be landing on the moon
We'll be landing on the moon
We'll be landing on the moon, yes we will

We'll be walking on the moon, yes we will
We'll be walking on the moon, yes we will
We'll be walking on the moon
We'll be walking on the moon
We'll be walking on the moon, yes we will

We'll be blasting off again, yes we will
We'll be blasting off again, yes we will
We'll be blasting off again
We'll be blasting off again
We'll be blasting off again, yes we will

We'll be landing back on Earth, yes we will
We'll be landing back on Earth, yes we will
We'll be landing back on Earth
We'll be landing back on Earth
We'll be landing back on Earth, yes we will

Read a book about the moon, such as: National Geographic's Moon--Steve Tomecek.

Do the activity at the end of the book:
Making Craters

1. Spread a towel on the table. Place a metal cake pan in the middle.
2. Fill the pan with flour so that it's about 1 inch deep. Smooth it out by shaking the pan gently.


3. Take a pebble (I didn't have pebbles, so i used a couple of magnets, marbles, and different coins) and hold it about 2 ft above the pan of flour.

4. Drop the object into the flour and watch what happens.


5. Repeat with other objects.

Ask questions and make observations:
What happens to the flour when the object hits the surface?
How does this experiment explain how craters form?
Were there any differences in the sizes of the craters?

Moondough:

Give your child large handfuls of playdough to roll and pat into thick circles for moons. Make representations of the different moon phases. Show him how to poke craters into the moons with toothpicks.

Me on the Moon

For a souvenir of your space week, find a picture of an astronaut. Make a copy of the picture. Cut out the face of the astronaut and use a picture of a child and make another copy. Now it looks like your student is on the moon. Do this for all of your children. They'll love it.

Blue Moon

Discussion: Explain to the children that there is a full moon each month. However, some months there are two full moons. And, the second full moon in a month is called a Blue Moon.

Story: The Nightgown of the Sullen Moon the moon is painted blues, greens, and purples. If not available then your favorite.

Art

Need: white paper (8 1/2" x 11" (2 sheets per child), circle patterns (about 7" in diameter), white glue, watercolors, brushes, pencils, scissors, books and pictures about the moon, book - "The Nightgown of the Sullen Moon"

Have children trace the circle pattern onto construction paper or provide already cut out circles. Draw five to seven craters inside the moon circle. Apply a bead of white glue on top of the crater outlines. The glue outlining needs to partially dry.

Put on paint shirts and set out watercolors (shades of blue, green, purple). Paint the inside of the craters first with a dark shade of one of the colors. Use water-downed solutions of the other two colors to wash across the face of the moon so it has a hazy appearance.

If children traced circles onto construction paper, when paintings are dry they can cut out the moon circles.

Snacks

Moon Balls

Ingredients: 2 C. Peanut butter, 1 1/3 C. Honey, 2 C. Raisins 2 C. Dry milk, 3 1/2 C. Graham cracker crumbs (keep 1/2 c. separate)

Mix dry milk, raisins, and 3 c. graham cracker crumbs
Add honey and peanut butter, mix will (hands do best)
Roll into small balls
Place remaining 1/2 c. of graham cracker crumbs in a large baggie Place several balls at a time into the baggie and shake, then place on a
Cookie sheet.
Chill then eat.

Outer Space: Day Two

Astronauts and Looking into Space

Read a book about studying space. Talk about how it is the job of astronauts to look into space and discover new information. You can use telescopes to gaze into the stars.

The Astronaut Song

Outer space is where I really like to go
I ride inside a spaceship, don't you know
I like to travel near the stars
Wave to Jupiter and Mars
Outer space is where I really like to go

Make your own Telescope:

Put two pieces of black tissue paper at the end of a paper towel tube and fasten it with a rubber band. Using a small object (pencil, pen, paperclip, etc.) punch several small holes in the tissue paper. Next let your children decorate their telescope however they see fit. When your children look through the telescope and hold it up to a light they will see stars!

(Or, use a toy telescope and put some star stickers up on the wall/ceiling for children to look at.)


When you look out into space, you see that there are millions of stars, too many to count. Stars are grouped into galaxies. We live in "The Milky Way Galaxy." We are going to make our own galaxy/solar system.

My Spray Bottle Solar System

Materials:

• Paint
• Spray Bottle
• Paper
• Crayons/Markers
• Planet Coloring Page

Directions:

• Dilute white paint with water and put it in a small spray bottle. Let your children spray this mixture onto black construction paper. This will make the paper look like space. Let the paint dry.
  
• Next show your children several pictures of the solar system. Have them color the planets on their own paper to look like the planets in our solar system. Then invite them to cut out the planets and place them in their own solar system on the paper.

To get a closer look into space, astronauts blast off and orbit the earth.

Flying Saucer

Materials:

• Two CDs for Each Child (AOL Free CDs work great)
• Glue
• Cup Lid or Milk Cap
• Construction Paper
• Paint
• Various Other Art Supplies

Directions:

• Glue the Two CDs together (so that only the shiny parts can be seen). Then paste the lid on so that it looks like the cabin of the flying saucer. Then let your children finish the design of the flying saucer anyway that they can.
  You can also use cardboard pieces or cardboard pizza bottoms to make the flying saucers.

Space Shuttle

Make a pretend space shuttle. Get a large box (refrigerator) and two smaller ones (oven). Put them together to form a space shuttle. You can use a third box to form the point of the shuttle. Paint the boxes white or drape white sheets over them (cheaper). Finally, cut out a place for the children to get into the box on the bottom of the box. You can cut stars out of the top of the box so that the children will see stars when they look up. For added effect give the children space uniforms (white sheets and helmets (5 gallon ice cream buckets)). Practice getting in the spaceship, buckling up, and counting down....BLAST OFF!!!

Climb Aboard The Space Ship

Climb aboard the spaceship, we're going to the moon
Hurry and get ready, we're going to blast off soon
Put on your helmets, and buckle up real tight
Here comes the countdown, let's count with all our might
10 . . . 9 . . .8 . . . 7 . . .6 . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . .2 . . . 1 . . . blast off!

Astronaut Food

Split a package of instant pudding into about four servings. Put each serving into a Zip Loc Bag. Add the amount of milk that the package says to add. Next have your children squeeze and shake the bag until it starts to thicken. You can either eat it now or put it in the fridge through naptime. When your children eat it cut off one of the corners and have them suck it through the corner.

Outer Space: Day One

There's No Place Like Space!

An introduction to the Solar System and our planets.

Read "There's No Place Like Space"--by Tish Rabe....part of the Cat in the Hat's Learning Library. (You will have to modify and explain that Pluto is no longer a planet, but is now considered a dwarf planet, so there are no longer NINE planets, but EIGHT. There is a mnemonic device for remembering the planets in order which is obsolete, too. You could replace it with one like: My Very Educated Mother Just Saw Uncle Nick.)

Our Solar System: The Sun and Eight Planets

If you still have the sun you made from a previous lesson, use that. If not, use a paper plate painted yellow to represent the sun. Print out these planet cards (excluding Pluto) and glue them onto cardstock. Cut them out and number them, in order, 1-8.


Help children put them in order, count them, name them, and show how the planets surround the sun. You can use one of the songs below:

The Planets Zippidy Doo
(Sung to "Ten Little Indians")

Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars
Then comes Jupiter, oh my stars
Saturn and Uranus, too.
Then comes Neptune...zippidy doo

The Family Of The Sun (sung to FARMER IN THE DELL)

The family of the sun, the family of the sun, here are eight planets in,
the family of the sun.
Mercury is hot, Mercury is small, Mercury has no atmosphere,
it's just a rocky ball.
Venus has thick clouds, that hide what is below, the air is foul, the ground is hot,
it rotates very slow.
We love the Earth our home, its oceans and its trees, we eat its food,
we breathe its air, so no pollution please.
Mars is very red, it's also dry and cold, some day you might visit Mars,
if you are really bold.
Great Jupiter is big, we've studied it a lot, we found it has lots of moons,
and a big red spot.
Saturn has great rings, we wondered what they were, now we know they're icy rocks, which we saw as a blur.
Uranus is so far, it's cold and greenish blue, we found it rotates sideways,
and it has lots of moons.
Neptune has a spot, a stormy patch of blue, the planet has a lot of clouds,
and rings around it, too.
The family of the sun, the family of the sun, here are eight planets in,
the family of the sun.

Author Unknown

The Planets Revolve Around the Sun
(Sung to: "The Ants Go Marching")
The planets revolve around the sun, hurrah; hurrah
The planets revolve around the sun, hurrah; hurrah
The planets revolve around the sun and spin on their axis every one.
And they all go spinning, around and around and around they go.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, hurrah; hurrah
Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, hurrah; hurrah
Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are whirling and twirling around the sun
And they all go spinning, around and around and around they go.

Jupiter, Saturn are next in space, hurrah, hurrah
Jupiter, Saturn are next in space, hurrah, hurrah
Jupiter, Saturn are next in space. Uranus and Neptune complete all eight.
And they all go spinning, around and around and around they go.

Orbit the Sun:
Place a round rug or pillow in the middle of the room. Have children practice moving around the "sun" just like the planets do. Sing the above song about the revolving planets as you move in a big circle around the room. You could also talk about how planets rotate (spin) on their axis and have children pratice spinning in place. For older kids, have the rotate AND revolve at the same time!

Popsicle Stick Orbit:

Have your children decorate a washer as a planet and a popsicle stick as the sun. Attach the washer to one side of a piece of yarn and the popsicle stick to the other (helps to cut a notch in the stick). Tell your children to hold the sun (Popsicle stick) and spin the yarn causing the planet to orbit.

Solar System Coloring Pages:
Click HERE for a coloring book.....adjust for younger children.
Click HERE for a planet page.
Clicke HERE for the planets in orbit.