Giant Planets

After a week off for spring break, we jumped right back into our space theme.  This week we learned about Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and the Galaxy. We found some really fun songs/videos online and they have just gone crazy learning all about each planet.

Jupiter was a fun one to do because it has stripes. The first step for this Invitation to Create activity was to put stripes of masking tape across it, not full pieces, but skinnier pieces so that it was closer to what we see on the planet. They got to paint the planet and when it dried we pulled the tape off. Some of the children put more paint ON the tape than the part that wasn’t taped. We had to instruct them to paint a bit more between the tape. Our Experience Curriculum came with a circle that we just had to punch out but you can make your own by cutting out the circle after it dries.

I am loving our new paint trays! I got them in the dollar spot for $3 each. I am going to pick up some more before they don’t have them anymore since our school is growing quickly. It cleans up so easy. That is so important since we are busy all day long working with the children.

Our Invitation to Create for Uranus was to cut blue paper and blue cellophane in a circle. They glued them to the black paper. Since we have learned about how the other planets have their own moons and there are some dwarf planets in our solar system, too, they took while colored pencils and drew some around the planet. If you didn’t have the cellophane, you could always just take a blue colored pencil or crayon and color the blue paper a different shade of blue to give it different look than just plain paper.

Three of the extra activities we had for our Space & Sky theme are a pattern builder, a memory game and a word builder game. Everyone loves the memory game. We play it differently depending on the age of the children playing. The younger ones, ages 2-3 can play it with all pictures face up. They can take turns finding matches. The 4-6 age group plays it the correct way, all turned over and using their memory to find matches. The pattern builder is always fun. We do that with so many different counters throughout the year. The planet world builders was great because it helped them spell the names of the planets. Matching the letters helps them understand they letters are just something they know but that they can use them to build the words that they speak.

For Neptune, our Invitation to Create was super fun! We used out paint trays, and little balls to paint with. Some of the kids held there trays and moved them side to side for the ball covered in paint went back and forth over the paper. We let the kids paint on the entire paper and after it was dry we drew a circle and cut it out. We gave them blue and white paint. You can use whatever shades of blue you want, Just have fun. I think this was one of their favorite painting sessions. It is always fun to paint with a different type of “brush”. It helps them think about how the pictures turn out different depending on what they paint with and how they use it.

We didn’t use paint for Saturn. It was kind of nice to take a break from the paint, even though the kids could paint every single day, given the opportunity. Our Make & Play art was taking a circle and coloring it yellow and orange. Then we taped a piece of yarn to one side and they wrapped it around however they wanted and we taped the other end down when they were done, unless they wanted to leave it undone so they could wrap and unwrap it over and over again.

We finished up the week with a fun watercolor picture. Our Invitation to Create was very different for each child. We found these paint pallets at dollar tree. It took a bit to get them to get paint on the brush. We had to show them by getting the brush wet and then rubbing on the color they wanted before painting. They were given salt to sprinkle on there. We added a little glue to keep some of the salt on. This activity is super easy to do. Just let them pick whatever colors they want and let them have fun.

Join us next week as we wrap up our space theme. Next month we will have a new theme, Ocean Dive!

Remember, There's Adventure Around Every Corner!

*Please note that at this time we were using our "homeschool's name", BCAA.

Original post date Mar 27, 2021