Astronaut Week

Part deux. Playing catch up.  During the summer, we were able to visit our local planetarium.  I was surprised by how much H enjoyed this experience.  The planetarium is used by the school district during the year, but I thought, why not take this opportunity to expand upon that experience many months ago!

This particular session I introduced something I was a bit hesitant about for H, because I didn’t know if he was ready, but I was pleasantly surprised that he both enjoyed and was able to do complete the activity; read further for the scoop!

Our learning activities were the following:

These activities and their sources are repetitive; almost at nauseum.  What I have found through this experience is if I do not repeat these tasks, they tend to slip away.  Each builds on itself over time and is becoming second nature for H and soon will be for Ness too!  If you’re asking yourself, do you enjoy laminating sheets, the answer is a loud resounding “NO”, but in an attempt to be green, I want to use them again next year with Ness too!  Next year will be easier, right?

New Words – This is something I do every week, but tend to leave it out of the blog because if you access the link that will take you to the print materials, you will see them.  I thought perhaps I’d take this opportunity to explain our vocabulary cards, which we introduce each week.  They correlate to the week and to the books we use.  This week, more than others, the vocabulary cards introduce new vocabulary for the kids.  Using a printable from http://homeschoolcreations.com, H and Ness see pictures of the vocabulary words and the words themselves.

Shadow Matching – Ness is getting to the age where she’s interested in puzzles and matching.  Both Ness and H were given shadow-matching cards to play with.  Ness requires some assistance, and H will often help her.  Both match the picture to the shadow, taken from http://homeschoolcreations.com.

The letter M and R – We used letters from http://homeschoolcreations.com H traced the letters.  H was provided words starting with each letter to trace as well.

Identify the Letter – H was provided pictures with letters.  He sounded out the words and circled the letter the word started with. 

Fill in the letter – After introducing our vocabulary words, H was provided tracing words.  Afterward, we worked on identifying the sound each word started with and wrote the missing letter in the blank space.

Color recognition – Both H and Ness were provided colored spaceships.  Ness was told what the colors were as we flipped through the ships.  H was asked to identify the color.  Finally, he is readily able to differentiate between red and green.

Number recognition/Backwards counting – Using the countdown to lift-off method, H identifies the numbers, as we count down to lift off.  This is our first experience with backwards counting.

Games and Activities:

Moon sand sensory bin – When I can, I like to use and reuse and reuse what we have on-hand.  Moon sand is one of those items that can be used again and again.  When stored in a zip-lock bag, the reuse is nearly limitless.  I make the moon sand, but it can be purchased as well.  To make the moon sand, I use the following:

9 cups of flour

1 ¼ cup of baby oil

For this activity, I added glitter also! 

We added miniature spaceships, glow-in-the-dark stars and astronauts to encourage play.

Constellation Jar – We created a starry night using an old peanut butter jar, tinfoil, and an LED light (left over from Halloween).  I punched holes in the tinfoil and placed the punched foil on the inside the peanut butter jar and placed the LED light inside.  The kids liked the glow even though the darkness was “spoooooky”.  At home planetarium!

Glow in the dark bath!!  – This was cool.  Taking two highlighters and removing the sponges from the inside, they were run under the faucet to remove the ink (I have been advised that it is in you, and your children’s best interest to ensure they are nontoxic).  This created a glow in the dark ready bath.  I placed glow in the dark stars in the bathroom as well and turned on the disco-friendly black light.  Both kids really enjoyed this… perhaps not as much as I did!   

Put the solar system together!  - I found a great deal on a glow in the dark solar system.  We put it together and identified the planets and their positioning.  Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe Pluto should be a planet!

Glitter writing – This was what I alluded to in the beginning, until this week, H focused mainly on tracing letters.  This week, we wrote letters in glitter!   I was so excited.  He did relatively well and it excites me for the future!

Art Projects

Planet Painting– We painted the kids “favorite” planets.  Ness chose Earth and Haakon wanted to recreate Jupiter and Mars.  Paint plus my kid’s equal’s fun for all!  This was so much fun!