You guys, I LOVED studying the solar system with my boys. I learned things I couldn't believe I hadn't retained from middle or high school. Seeing my children learning alongside me at ages three and one, being totally immersed in a subject that captivated them completely - that was what did it!
We started with a cool video on YouTube to introduce the subject of Space exploration. I love YouTube because the videos are short, engaging, and FREE :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLhqWE3kxgQ
We follow Starfall's preschool curriculum for the most part, with the exception of a few adjustments for our modified school year calendar. The week that I planned our Space Exploration unit, we were focused on the letter "M" - which worked perfectly with words like Moon, Mercury, Mars, and Milky way.
I love using these wipe-off pockets and letting DG trace the letter in any color dry-erase marker he wants! You can print this letter "M" tracing sheet here: http://coloringguru.com/free-printable-tracing-letter-m-worksheets-for-preschool/
We love sensory play bins. I bought a bunch of plastic storage bins from my favorite club-size store and I make up a week's worth of sensory bins in advance.
This one used a variety of pom-poms (stars, meteors) and infant sensory balls (planets) by b Kids and Infantino, along with a poof sports ball thrown in for good measure.
It was interesting how right away the boys were making connections to the ball with the craters being the "moon" and the red ball being Mars!
We had fun using the acronym "My Very Excited Mother Served Us Nachos" (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) to put the planets in order.
We did that with pom poms, too!
A leftover piece of cardboard from a frozen pizza with a yellow pom pom sun in the center made the perfect model of our solar system!
Definitely not to scale, but the planets are in order, and the boys did this with very, very minimal help. I love, love, love crafts that are mostly directed by the child - after all, it's their art, not mine.
Of course, what Space Exploration Unit would be complete without building your own spaceship out of a box from Amazon and a roll of tin foil!? Apologies for the poor photo angle.
Astronaut hats were needed as well!
On board technology: some tablet/iPad keyboards, a play phone, a roll of duck tape, some binoculars, and board books (good thing our space shuttle came with an owner's manual!)
I saw this cute experiment on Pinterest, and thought it would be cool to add a cube as well. All you need is a round cake pan, a blob of play dough, and shapes to "orbit" your play dough sun.
We set up our sun...
...found that the ball orbited very nicely around the blob!
Perfect example of how our planets orbit...but would the cube orbit? We found that it sure did clunk around the pan, but only the ball could rotate and spin. We hypothesize that there won't be any cube-shaped planets forming anytime soon. ;)
I put some sort of media on for DG each day while I'm putting Noah down for his nap, and found that there are some awesome kids shows and YouTube videos to reinforce outer space concepts. He loves to watch them on his Fire for kids edition tablet. Check them out below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLhqWE3kxgQ&list=RDNLhqWE3kxgQ - This is a mix of many awesome little planet-themed videos for preschoolers, including the song that we used above.
https://www.amazon.com/Call-a-Clambulance/dp/B004KPX56C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484680307&sr=8-1&keywords=bubble+guppies - This links to Amazon video, which has the entire first season of Bubble Guppies included in Prime memberships. The seventh episode on the list, "The Moon Rocks!" is a highly educational (and cute/tolerable!) way to give preschoolers an overview of all things SPACE!
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