Space activities

Here's a view of our shelving unit we use to display the books/projects that have to do with the topic we are studying. I liked the shelves in the case, which is why I got it because they are slanted, and easy to display the books.



On the top shelf we have two space puzzles, a game, Sputnik (I found this about four years ago at a toy store going out of business and the kids LOVE it!), a folder of real life photos of the moon (all taken by my dad-see here for his actual site of astropictures), a folder of work Nathaniel has completed about space, and there was a space shuttle casting kit, but he decided to make it Saturday- photos of that will show up this week when the paint dries.

Here is a game I found online at Itty Bitty Love, it really is a great idea- you take a calendar, put the big pictures up from each month, cut out and laminate the thumbnail sized ones from the back, and then have the kids match them. I numbered the big pictures and hung them up all over our downstairs at night while the kids were in bed. The laminated cards were placed in a basket and put in our shelf in the "classroom". I numbered the pictures so they have some type of order to follow to find them, and so that Nathaniel can find them and write their names down for me to check. The goal is that he does this many times enough that he remembers the names of the stars and galaxies. The kids had the basket out and were hunting around for the pictures before breakfast was even on the table, it's great for all ages. This is also a great activity because you can reuse old calendars or get them really cheap onsale after Christmas.

Here are the cards and pencil in the basket, and you can see the paper under his arm with his list of names- he fills them in as he goes along:



And a match:



Another thing we've been doing is working on a guided reading project that goes along with If You Decide To Go To The Moon (If you go to the site, you click on enrichment units, and then scroll down until you get to Enrichment Units and you will see the pages to print for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, this book, and Chicken Sunday. I found this website while searching for first grade curriculum information. We completed the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs one, and I thought it was quite helpful for comprehension and thinking skills, so we did this one too. I printed out all the pages and stapled them together. First, we read the book, then each day, we did one page, it really helped my son analyze the books and think about things more deeply. I am going to use this type of model for one story for each unit that we study next year.

We have also been going to NASA's website to play online space games. We have printed a black hole game, I will post pics in our next space acitivities post later this week.

Our writing and drawing work

One thing I learned from our current and past experience with Montessori work is that kids tend to be more willing to write and creative with their work when they can choose the topic. All school year, about twice per week, I'll give Nathaniel a piece of paper that is blank on top and lined on the bottom and have him draw a picture and write about it. Lately, we've been studying space, so the examples you'll see are from his space binder, I've been asking him to draw a picture about space and write about it. He has been doing all of this writing of facts from pure memory.








I love the V20 at the top, he thinks he's cool for coming up with it for "venus second planet zero moons".

We keep all the papers together in a binder with clear page covers in case anyone wants to read them or look at them.



Another thing we do is put together mini books about a topic. Here, I have stapled together about 12 small rectangles of black paper with a white cover. He has written "My constellation book" on the cover. Each day, he chooses a few constellations to draw and label. I am trying to get him to realize that the dots are more important than the lines because the dots are what you will only see in the sky. We are using cray-pas to draw on the black paper. He enjoys looking through all the books, trying to choose which constellation to put in his book.

Outer space mural

Currently, we are studying outer space. I have not limited it to any specific part of space, so we are looking at all aspects, to name a few: constellations, space shuttles, planets, and space exploration. We are looking through a LOT of non-fiction books and watching some great DVD's, I'll post a list later.

We got a giant sized roll of paper from Dick Blick. Let me tell you something, if you can afford it, it is a GREAT investment, it will last a long time and you can cut off a big enough piece to keep lots of kids busy for a long time. For the mural, I printed off a picture of an astronaut on an 8 x 10 piece of paper (I don't remember where I got it, I just searched on google). Then, I printed out a head shot of each of the kids on a 5 x 7 photo paper. I cut out the kids' faces and put them in the helmet of the astronaut picture, cut the astronaut out, then laminated for more stability.

First, the kids and I painted the background with black, blue, and white paint, we tried to do swirls and big strokes to make it look like space:



Good thing we used washable paint:



Finished with the paint:



Starting to decorate with planets and stickers:



The bird of paradise constellation:



The completed project hanging in front of our fireplace:



Close ups of the astronauts, yes Nathaniel is thrilled that he is touching the sun:





After it was hung, the kids were running up to it pretending they were going to different planets and then Nathaniel started running a quiz show. Here are some of the questions he asked:

1) What object on the board is not a planet, but a star? The sun

2) Which planet has an atmosphere that would crush you if you didn't melt first? Venus

3) What is the coldest planet and swings inside its neighbors orbit? Pluto (yes I didn't break the news to him)

4) Which four planets have rings? Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune

More to come when the rocket makes its way in by the end of the week!