When do you and your students investigate stars and planets? I’m asking because, the last few nights, I’ve seen a spectacular display of twinkling wonders above my North Carolina neighborhood. Usually, it’s me nudging my pooch to pick up the pace of our last-call evening walk. Since I’ve taken up stargazing, our roles have reversed!
Here’s an idea request for you! Please share your favorite activities for teaching about the night sky, and I’ll make sure our editors review them for purchase. You know what that means, right? A $20 gift certificate from The Mailbox could be just a twinkle away!
Lovin’ the night sky,
Diane
The first day of this theme I show my kids some pictures of constellation – one without the “lines” drawn on and then one with. I have them put stars anywhere they want on a black piece of paper and have them name their constellation. The other idea I have came from a magazine can’t remember which one but you take a styrafoam ball wrap it in colored saranwrap – but I couldn’t find colored so I put a smaller piece of tissue paper inside the clear plastic wrap and wrap up the styrafoam ball. Then we use a pipecleaner to keep the top all together (and make a hanger so we can hang from the ceiling and trim the excess wrap. After that we take a craft foam ring and slip it over the ball to make it look like saturn. You can put star stickers on if you want but we don’t. The kids love it! We also drop rocks into a small tray of sand to see why the moon has craters.
When I do the space theme (stars, planets etc) I also bring astronants into it. We make space pudding and eat like the astronants. Place 3 spoons of pudding mix into a ziploc bag and add about 6 spoons of milk and ziploc it. Have the children squish and mix until it is a very loose pudding. Open the bag and insert a straw and reseal. Have the children sip it through the straw just like a real astronant.
I like to make constellation light boxes. You cut a square hole from the side of a cereal box, and then use a pushpin to pierce constellation patterns onto sheets of black construction paper. Place one of the construction paper pattens over the hole in the box, and then lower the lights and place a lit flashlight inside the box. The constellation pattern will appear on your ceiling like stars.