Space

Brielle has been asking for months if we could go back to Griffith's Observatory.  I finally worked another Space Theme into our school schedule so we could make the field trip a priority.

We went to a show at the planetarium that was amazingly well done.  The narrator had a voice that sounded synthesized, even though she was real and obviously talking live, her voice made you feel like you were really going into space.  The kids kept reaching out thinking that we would crash into the planets.  It was fabulous.

Some of the other activities this week:  

Last year we painted the planets and put them on the wall.  This year Brielle insisted they needed to orbit.  We used the light as the sun and hung them up.

We used the planets from the preschool pack provided by 1+1+1=1  

We used the song to learn the planets in order.  We also learned about pluto this year, but Brielle calls it playdoh instead.  Ethan likes Earth best because it is green and blue, his favorite colors.

to the tune of 'She'll be Going Around the Mountain'

There are 8 planets in are solar system

There are 8 planets in are solar system

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

There are 8 planets in our solar system

Games and Activities

We had some new file folder games to play (as always, thanks Annie!)

Name rockets the kids wrote the letters of their names on squares and put them together to build a rocket

we did a lot of pretend play, building rockets and blasting off to different planets.  We used the closet under the stairs at our house again to put glow-in-the-dark stars and built rocket ships with boxes to go in there.  We also used our kitchen strainer and a flashlight to create the space look in dark places.

Food

And looking back at pictures, we apparently played with our food a lot.

Planet Quesadillas.  I let the kids decorate their own using food safe markers

planet and star sandwiches

moon pizza (I cooked the dough and let it bubble to form craters).  The kids then put toppings on it and were excited to be eating the moon.

Brielle was building a space station

and gavin designed rockets

Books

One of the books we borrowed was from a friend who works for NASA.  It was a giant book about space that fascinated the kids.

They also loved the silly book called "The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot"

 we also played with games NASA kids site