A Week on Space

Outside Fun - I drew our solar system on the driveway (not to scale, ha).  The kiddos loved hoping along the planets.  As they went I sang our planet song.

Earth's Rotation - We chatted about how the earth moves (spinning) then I showed them how it also rotates around the sun...

Sun, Earth, Moon Movement Model - Once they got the earth's movement down, we added in the moon...

 

Planetary Distances Using Tp - Ha...yep!  Someone figured it out!  What a great way to show how far apart the planets are and how far they are from the sun.  We would have liked to have done this outside, but it was windy out there and that just doesn't work with tp.

Just in case you're dying to try this at home...

Sun

Mercury - 1 sq. from the sun

Venus - 1.8 sqs.

Earth - 2.5 sqs.

Mars - 3.8 sqs.

Jupiter - 13.2 sqs.

Saturn - 24.2 sqs.

Uranus - 48.6 sqs.

Neptune - 76.3 sqs.

Pluto - 100 sqs.

Painting with Pop Rocks - This was cool!  First the kiddos got to taste some Pop Rocks... "Sizzle!" and "Spicey!"

Then we mixed it into our paint.  It was crazy!  All the noise of Pop Rocks in paint, rather than in your mouth.

Textured Moon - I mixed white paint and flour to create a lumpy, textured paint.  The kiddos slathered it on their moons.  It'll take a day or so to dry, but they'll be really cool when we get them all done.

Moon Sand - We mixed flour and baby oil to create a really soft, malleable but crumbly dough.  It was interesting to play with.  I sent the kiddos home with their dough to enjoy further.

Moon Phase Fold Outs - I wanted to create an awareness of the moon in the kiddos.  So hopefully they take a look at the moon tonight and succeeding nights.  We talked generally about the moon phases, telling them that the moon "grows" till it's full and then it "shrinks".  Then we created this fold out...

Once we finished our fold outs, we created the moon phases with Oreos.  I showed the kiddos that when you open an oreo, there is a full moon.  Then I demonstrated how to gently cut away part of the frosting to create the different phases.  The kiddos had a blast...

Moon Mural - We took the moons we created yesterday and added them to our Pop Rock paintings from Monday.  They turned out pretty fabulous.

Astronaut - These turned out super cute.  I had the kiddos draw their face, then we put their helmet on and they added stars around themselves.

Space Band-Aids - I found these at Ikea and paid less than a buck for the box, so I pulled them out for the kiddos to enjoy this week.  We stuck some in our journals and some on us!