Jet Pack Costume

For youth group last Tuesday we had to dress up with the theme of the unit we had been teaching on: Space Quest! I knew exactly what to make for "A"-a jet pack costume! The greatest thing is I had all items on hand using recycled items and it was completely free. I originally saw the idea on Pinterest and a different variation at Classy Miss Molassy. Mine is a lot less fancy because I am a no fuss type of gal. So without further adieu...

Blast Off!!!

Directions:

Take two 2 Liter soda bottles and I taped them together with clear packaging tape. Then tape them to a cardboard piece (I used a flap). Punch holes in the four corners of cardboard. Add string to be able to put it on like a backpack. Add red & orange tissue paper for flames. Viola-easy peasy you are done!!!

"A" also wanted to make a space man "helmet". He just cut a hole in a box (the same one we got the flap off for the jet pack) and he decorated it with space drawings and "buttons".

Little Star-How I wonder...

One of our last projects for looking at space was to talk about stars and constellations. I had wanted to make with "A" a large star that some of my friends had their 3rd grade classroom do around Christmas. I got out my origami paper (you could use any paper-even wrapping paper) as long as it is square. Fold into a triangle and then once more. Then make two cuts on the fold line leaving about an inch at the edge. Open the paper up and tape the edges of the cuts together. Fold one together and then flip it over and fold it again. You will have three folds for each square. Then make a chain of 8 squares and then circle it around to make a star.When making the chain and circle I would use staples rather than glue or tape. Then you can hole punch one point and hang to enjoy.

"A" had to make a star from his own design using my origami  paper. I am trying to ease up and allow him to do more kid-directed art, rather than projects that I have a finished product in mind. This is a constant struggle with me that you can read in a previous blog.

After reading some books about constellations I found some constellation cards and had "A" punch holes where the stars are. We then put a flashlight behind the cards and made night sky on our bedroom wall. I got the idea for this from Counting Coconut's solar system mini-unit. Her mini-units are awesome and I recommend you check them out.

I couldn't finish the constellation unit with out trying out the most amazingly, cute idea that Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational blogged about. You take a picture of your child laying on the floor in a strewn out position. Print out the picture on a full 8x10 page. Put a new piece of printer paper over the photo page and then have your child mark where stars would be if they were a constellation. Then draw straight lines linking the stars. We then glued stars from our confetti bag to make it a little more festive. "A" was really excited and proud to see the final constellation of himself!

Some Books We Read:

What kiddo doesn't like glow-in-the-dark books

Both of these book are by Jacqueline Mitton and are very beautiful. Great inspiration for your personal constellation.

Blast Off!

We have been making some smaller rocket ships to play with, but I forgot to mention the HUGE rocket ship Daddy made on the computer for "A" to decorate. Daddy used 5-6 pieces of paper and making different lines on the computer we now have a door poster. Within seconds "A" had began coloring. It was funny to see how he tried to color the top. After jumping and climbing we decided me holding him would do the trick. "A" is pretty proud of his rocket door poster, and I think that because it's Daddy made it is extra special!

Alien Party

We have been doing a lot of learning this week about outer space for this week's summer challenge. Today I thought we should do some silly crafts to lighten the mood. We made three different types of aliens. Our first alien was made from recycled juice lids and pipecleaners, the second was from recycled boxes, and the last is a green blob made from corn syrup. The inspirations for the aliens came from Craft Jr. and Makes and Takes. Then we made them have an alien party!

Soda caps, pipecleaners, poms, and googly eyes (idea from Craft Jr.)

We made them spaceships from aluminum muffin tins

Made from recycled boxes, aluminum foil, sharpies, pipecleaners, and googly eyes (from Craft Jr.)

Our green glob aliens. One fell over on my white carpet (AHHH). Looked cool though!

Green Globs all better: corn syrup, green food coloring, and googly eyes (from Make and Take)

ALIEN PARTY!!!

We needed some American Heroes to come save the day. I found a foldable rocket ship that I had saved from a Subway Kids Meal and then we made another rocket out of paper towel tube, paper, two foam circles, and tissue paper.

This Subway Rocket made by Smithsonian was a good find

Homemade Rocket Ship with a paper towel roll

Here to save the day or ruin the alien party (depending on the side you are on)

When we weren't playing I snuck in some learning from the Solar System Preschool Pack that 1+1+1=1 blog. I printed out some of the worksheets that use clothespins to mark the answer. I am newly obsessed with clothspins, so expect to see more with them. I especially like the cards she uses that has the child pick out the beginning consonant sound.

I also wanted to quickly note some fun games we found on the NASA website. My first favorite game was called Grab It : where four pictures of items and a rocket ship with a letter showing are on the screen. The child chooses the items that begin with that sound and the arm reaches and and puts the correct items in the ship. The second game (Rocket Builder) is matching shapes to create rocket ships. The child has to complete a whole fleet to win the game.

Taking a look at the Solar System

Now that we have explored our moon it was time to look at the planets. We started with talking about what planets are and what they are not. I had printed out a great worksheet that helped "A" with the classification from 1+1+1=1 Solar System Preschool Pack. This is a fabulous resource and I recommend everyone check out all the printables she has!

Next on the agenda for learning we talked about the orbit the planets have around the sun. From Exploring the Solar System by Mary Kay Carson I found an activity to help demonstrate that the planets don't go around the sun in a perfect circle but in a orbit we call elliptical.

1st fold a paper in half both ways. Put a tack in the middle as the sun. Take a string and draw a circle.

Next put a second tack anywhere on the horizontal line. Put the string over both tacks and draw another circle (elliptical orbit)

I had "A" color a sun for the middle and color an Earth to put it on orbit around the sun.

This has some great learning activities but the text is better for children over ten.

 I had "A" watch Magic School Bus Space Adventures because he walks away with a wealth of knowledge that he retains from these movies. The movie is from the 90s so we talked about how when I was younger we said we had nine planets in the solar system, but now they don't classify Pluto as one of the planets. We now call it a dwarf planet and we have new dwarf planets that we didn't recognize before. I tried to tell him it was an exciting time because scientist are really gaining new insight into our solar system, rather than comment on how confusing it is (which it is!!!) We then watched a read a book online at NASA called The First Annual Planet Awards. It was a great way to learn just the most important facts about each planet, a must for short attention spans. We followed up our research with some books from our library. We also looked at space photos, "A's" age and weight on NASA too. "A" had figured out his weight on the other planets earlier when we went to the Seattle Pacific Science Center in May. I then had "A" sort the planets into terrestrial planet and gas giants.

Movie Research:

 Books We Read:

13 Planets by David Aguilar ( an update look at the solar system by National Geographic Kids)

Me and My Place in Space by Joan Sweeny (these ME books are a series and a must read)

There's No Place Like Space by Tish Rabe

The Planets in Our Solar System by Franklyn Branley (Read-and-Find-Out Science book)

Pacific Science Center:

"A" in a space capsule

Sorting the Planets:

Planets are from the preschool pack mentioned earlier!

Then it came time for our huge activity of the day. I took the printable planets that I got from 1+1+1=1 blog (mentioned above) and we went for a walk to do a scaled down look at the distance of the planets from each other and the sun. Our front door was the sun (since that is the center of our universe), and then using a guide in the Exploring the Solar System book mentioned earlier we started counting our steps. It was great practice for "A" to practice his counting higher than 30. It was remarkable how far we got!

Our guide for you to try!

The sun-our starting point

The four terrestrial planets (pretty close to the sun and each other)

Our first gas giant starting to get farther away

Our planets on the sidewalk. Luckily no one took them. We put rocks on them so they wouldn't blow away!

Saturn-our house is at the big tree and up the driveway

Our ending point (Neptune). Our house is two trees up!

Finally, since I can't finish any day of learning with out some art strewn in "A" made two solar systems. The first is chalk around circles to give it almost a eclipse look. The second is a spattered paint solar system. I walked to make planets to go on the splattered paint but "A" was anxious to use his space stickers.