Rock Planets

Our space unit just gets more exciting every day! I’ve been a teacher since 1997 and space is always something that fascinates children and adults alike. I’ve taught the subject many different ways. I have collected many books about it over the years. I also gather all sorts of space items to learn and play with. Our five topics for this week were Earth, Mercury, Mars, Venus and Pluto. Experience Curriculum had some really fun activity ideas for this week, as always!

We started off the week with Earth. The kids can find Earth in any space book next to any other planet. During circle time, we take out our Fold-out Solar System book to find each planet and other things in our solar system. We actually got our copy IN the space puzzle instead of getting it separately. Our Invitation to Create was the Earth Collage. We put paper plates, the continent shapes on green paper, blue (we forgot to put some white paint! oops!), paint sponge “brushes” and glue. They painted the plate first and then glued the land on the plate. They enjoy painting so much.

We learned about Mercury and how it can be super hot and super cold. They made a Hot and Cold sign with red and blue circles that they glued back to back on a jumbo craft stick. We borrowed a space tent from one of our families so they could make it a little reading corner for the month. Children have to take turns in the tent so we can make sure they take care of the tent and the books they have in the tent. Flashlights make reading in the tent even more exciting.

Our monthly I Can Read book was of course about space. The little pictures and words are used to create the sentences from the book. Showing the children that the words say the same thing on each type of paper helps them understand how sentences are put together to create the books they enjoy.

Mars was a really fun planet to paint. In this Invitation to Create we put out black construction paper, yellow and orange paint and some red sand. On a side note, to make it more interesting and different textured, mix shaving cream IN your paint before giving it to the children. After the children had painted as much as they wanted, we gave them small cups of red sand to sprinkle on their picture. We helped the understand how they could hold the paper to the side to slide the sand over to the wet paint. You can tell which students understood that the planet was round and which students just had fun putting paint on the paper. At our school, both ways of doing this activity are the right way. They are not told HOW to do it. We just talk about the facts we have learned and they have fun creating.

Now our Invitation to Create for Venus was really interesting! We had never painted this way and it was a learning process for all of us. We laid out yellow construction paper, cotton balls, red and yellow paint in the same cup (they mixed it up on their own), glue and scissors. They drew a circle on the yellow paper and cut it out. Then they took cotton balls and pulled them into thin pieces. That was a learning process for them. One cotton ball could pull apart to cover a big amount of the planet. We helped where needed. After they got the cotton balls glued on their next adventure was to paint the cotton. The reason it was covered in cotton is because the planet is covered in clouds made of sulfuric acid. We used the sponge brushes but that didn’t work as well as we thought it would. I would suggest a regular large brush. Some kids decided to use their hands to push the paint and cotton down flat. Since this is an art project that they do it how they choose, we didn’t stop them.

We created some Make & Play Rock Planet Shakers. They had little paper cups that they took outside to collect some small rocks. They colored it with black and gray marker circles to represent the craters. We super glued it together but the younger kids pulled them apart. I would suggest for younger children to staple it. Or you could even do both. They enjoyed playing Space Lotto and did it many times, changing out the game mats each time. We used our star cards to cover the pictures that were called, just like bingo.

We have several fun space puzzles. This round puzzle is a new addition and they loved it. The puzzle came with a huge picture with information about space on it. The first time they did the puzzle, they did it on top of the picture. Then we hung the picture up so they could look at it if they needed to.

Wasn’t this a fun week? Next week we have spring break but we will be back the next week to have some more space fun!!! Try some of these craft ideas with your kids!

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 13, 2021