Exploring Space

Our final week of Space & Sky was exciting. The kids have learned and retained so much! The kids made a space suit instead of the astronaut puppet that was in the curriculum. I took the idea they gave me and put it together with a type of Make & Play we use often in Experience Curriculum. I used the heavier paper plates but you can use whatever type of disposable plate you have access to. I used two strips of paper, whatever color they wanted, to make a headband that they could wear. I cut the center out and stapled blue cellophane over it. We stapled the “body” under the helmet. If you don’t have the resources I have, just draw some space suit buttons and some gloves on a sheet of paper, let them color it and there you go! They also had a space ship control panel that they colored and I let them glue pieces of it to a strip of paper that matched their headband. They had so much fun wearing those throughout the day. I made them pretty loose so that they just hung in front of their face instead of being up against their head like usual headbands.

Each month we get these word puzzle mats so the kids can practice building words. Sometimes there is more than one of our letters that will fit and sometimes not. I get them to sound it out and tell me what the word is. We also try all the letters in the word even if there isn’t a word card for it. This month _ip can build a word with each of the three letters!

We also get some sort of pattern blocks or counters. This month we got pattern blocks that we could use with our light table. It was super fun for the kids to build space pictures with them. We used them with and without the light table.

One Make & Play craft was rockets. After they finished decorating them they held the end of the yard and “flew” them like a kite. Some of them stood in front of the standing fan and let the air make the rockets fly. This is a really easy craft that you can make with your children. You can make it the size you want, too. We used tape to attach the yarn to the paper.

These two brothers shared the journal this month. The younger one is getting to where he wants to color and create like his big brother. I love that they can draw whatever they want. It is always fun to see what they come up with.

We try to make some fun sensory bins each month. This time we used black beans, glow in the dark stars in multiple sizes, buttons, pom poms and space toys. We got a big bucket of space toys and they used them in and out of the sensory bins.

Most months we have ink pads and stamps that the children can use that match the theme. This one was really fun because they could name the planets on the stamps. We have a bunch of different colors of ink pads to use for all sorts of crafts. We like to do finger print pictures, too.

We have a bunch of colorful rocks for them to play with and explore. They used the safety goggles, magnifying glass and scale. We got a lot of the rocks on trips. You can get a bag of rocks almost any place you go. We were pretending they were “moon” rocks.

The grands used the space toys in the evenings and weekends when they were here. We are really enjoying the new-to-us table. Someone gave us the table since we only had one that had two chairs. Now we can sit and have a family meal together all at the table. Loving the together time.

That is a wrap on our Space & Sky theme. Join us in April for Ocean Dive! Let me know what your favorite activity was for March.

Remember, There's Adventure Around Every Corner!

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

Original post date Apr 2, 2021