SPACE WEEK: PK-3

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 Ana's Week 

We visited the solar system this week, and you can see in the pictures our astronaut Aria took a trip to the moon! This was probably my favorite week so far, as we both learned information about outer space this week. I love learning alongside Aria. We just have a blast together when we enjoy what we are studying for the week. With some items I had lying around the house, we made an astronaut outfit. The “helmet” was made from a grocery bag, and the outfit from a Blue Apron cooler bag. For the lazy woman’s rocket ship, I draped a sheet over our easel and made signs for inside. I taped a white circle for a window on our ship. Not very impressive or high class, but she loved it! We rode our ship to the moon where we dug for a space rock (something I bought at our local science museum).

On top of this, I bought magnets for all of the planets, which we labeled and discussed. We made our own mobile out of planets I printed, cut out, and hung from a paper plate. We hung the mobile in our breakfast room so we could look at it each day. We colored pictures of the planets, played an I-Spy game I found on Pinterest, played with space stickers, played a planet matching gamed, and painted a sun catcher (that I found at the Dollar Store). We also made outer space in a bottle and played a space game I found, printed out, and laminated. To finish out the week, we visited the local Coca-Cola Space Science Center to look at rockets, watch a video on space, and see the telescope in the observatory. 

Aria’s favorite thing we watched this week was this planets song we found on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mQrlgH97v94. We’ve watched it at least 15 times because it is educational but fun and catchy.

This week brought good news, as I learned that Aria can write her letters A and C without me having to show them to her, which was a proud teacher moment for me. She also told the names of several planets to my dad, so I know she at least absorbed a little of what we’ve learned this week. Space week was a success and a must repeat for next year!

Jessica's Blog
Oh my gosh you guys! Space week was seriously the most fun of anything we’ve ever done. What could possibly be more awesome than pretending to fly your ship to mars, dressing up as an astronaut and alien with your bf, catching falling alphabet stars, and making straw rockets that actually fly! There were so many little details that made this week extra special I’m not sure I’ll have space to include them all but you can bet I’m going to try. We started the week with a lot of crafts because although my father in law was kind enough to gift T an awesome (and easy to pop open/closed) rocket ship tent, I really wanted to deck it out with the latest and greatest NASA has to offer. It was a lot of prep and assembly work on my part but Taegan helped with the details and I figure we can store it all in a large tote to use year after year. I constructed a control board using a cardboard box wrapped in tinfoil and attached a headset we no longer use and some other fun items she could play with. For a costume we fashioned a jetpack from two-liter bottles, moon shoes from car wash sponges, and added a store-bought helmet.

Taegan had a friend over the day we “went to mars” so I found an old Wendy’s happy meal alien headband and some gloves from “the boogie monster book” so the girls could take turns dressing up. While in space I hung stars with alphabet letters from crepe paper and had them both “retrieve a falling star” to practice letters. We did a similar game with numbered rocks from “the moon”. Since there is less gravity on the moon we also “simply had to” try jumping on a couch cushion moon path.  After all that travel they were both ready for a snack so I pulled out a tube of freeze dried ice cream. I bought the kind that looks like dippin dots in a little tube so there was plenty to share and we could practice counting with it. After snack we talked about the stars and looked through a diy constellation viewfinder device. The girls enjoyed making their own constellations with star stickers on black construction paper. A little chalk to connect and they could turn them into different shapes. I think Riley’s was a princess and Taegan made a bird. They ended the afternoon playing in moon dough with toob figurines and a toilet paper toob space ship. I hung plastic planet replicas above the sensory bin so astronauts could practice traveling to and naming each one.
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By the end of the week Taegan knew all her planet names, could verbally explain gravity and orbit, and pointed out the big dipper all on her own! She might not be the most advanced with literacy and math but my child has a future with the sciences that’s for sure lol. The perfect ending to a perfect week was using our Carnegie Science Center Membership Again! Seriously, we’ve been a ton lately but there are so many tie-ins to our themes I couldn’t resist. This visit we focused on all the space exhibits and went to a planetarium showing (included with membership) of “One World, One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure”. It was perfect for her age group and I’ve heard this show airs nationwide so if you have a planetarium near you its def. worth checking out!