Constellation Hunt

Yesterday we continued with our space themed activities and talked a little about stars.  The girls were not interested in talking or doing much of anything that they considered work today.  So after a brief discussion about stars (very brief) we got out the watercolors.  The girls didn't know it, but I had drawn constellations on some white paper earlier with a white crayon (Thank you School Time Snippets for the idea).  I told them that certain groups of stars, called constellations, made pictures in the sky and as they painted they would find some constellations.  Sure enough when they painted over the white crayon the paint wouldn't stick revealing the stars and lines I had drawn earlier.  I wrote the name of the constellation on the paper as well, so we could look it up on the iPad (we have the Star Chart app which is wonderful).

They were so excited every time they found something, "Mama, I found a star!" or "Mama, I found the name!"

After a couple pictures Bria realized that you could feel the crayon on the paper, so she started to just paint where she felt stars.

I knew their attention span was not too great today, so I only made a few. I tried to choose ones they would be interested in or could spot easily. As I expected, their favorites were the unicorn, pegasus, and giraffe. I don't think I could actually find these in the sky, but they liked seeing them on star chart with the picture of the animal as an overlay (so you could see what people were thinking when they named it).

Pegasus

Giraffe

Unicorn

They had a great time with it! We will definitely have to use the white crayon and watercolor trick again!

How the World Turns

While learning about the solar system (A is for Astronaut) we talked about how the planets revolve around the sun (and comets and asteroid belts too).  I tried to explain to the girls that how the earth revolves around the sun is what gives us seasons, and how the earth rotates is what gives us night and day.  I didn't feel like I explained it well, so I set up a little activity to show it.

I started with a light, a globe, and a small ball on a glass jar.  These represent the sun, earth, and moon. The girls immediately recognized the sun and earth, but they weren't sure what the small ball was.  Since it was blue Bria thought it was Neptune.  We figured it out pretty quick and went on with the lesson.

First I had the girls find where we are, so we could use that for our discussion.

Then we talked about how th earth turns on its axis to make night and day.  How when we face the sun it is day because we have the light from the sun.

Day for us!

And how when we face away we don't see the sun, so it is dark (night).  We do see the moon, and the girls thought the moon had its own light.  So we also talked about how the moon is just reflecting the light of the sun (this led us to discuss moon phases).

Night for us!

For our moon phases we talked about how the moon circles the earth and depending on where it is relation to the earth and sun determines what type of moon we see.

Full moon when the sun illuminates the entire surface of the moon.

New moon when we see no illuminated surface because the moon is between the earth and sun.

Quarter moon when it is a 90 degree angle.

We did not dwell on moon phases because it was the first time we introduced them.  I really just wanted them to know that the moon circles the earth, is illuminated by the sun, and appears to change (but doesn't).

Here is a good moon phase diagram I found

Moon Phases

Then we talked about seasons.  We talked about how the earth is tilted and always stays tilted the same way while it travels around the sun.  It was easy to see how we saw more of the sun's light in the summer then in the winter. 

Winter here.  I know you already saw this picture, but
we spent most of the time in winter for the demonstration.

Summer here.

We went through spring and fall, but I was holding the globe off the table, so no pictures.   This was a lot of big concepts for little kids, but I think they learned some of it!  Then we had a cute moon phase snack I saw on Pinterest.  Unfortunately it was one of those pins that is just a picture.   So we were on our own when it came to making it.  I should have looked closer the first time because I tried cutting the tops of the oreos.  That was dumb, they just crumble.  Then I realized you just unscrew them and cut the filling. I think they really enjoyed their snack!

Eli chomping the oreos I tried to cut; he didn't care!

A is for Astronaut

  Recently the girls have been interested in the different kinds of jobs people do, so I decided to go through a few of them along with the alphabet. The obvious career for A is Astronaut, and that is exactly the one we started with. In fact we started studying the solar system along with it. We found a solar system place mat at Wal-Mart for a dollar!  Seeing all the planets and other bodies in the solar system was amazing for the girls. They were particularly fascinated with the asteroid belt and Jupiter's eye.

Bria showing me earth.

We discussed gravity a bit, and I picked them up and flipped them upside down a couple times (too bad we didn't have a trampoline handy). Then we had some astronaut ice cream (I found it at Old Navy of all places); it really didn't taste too bad. Wile they were eating it I flipped then again to see if they could eat while "floating." Nadia said she could, but Bria said she was too scared. Meanwhile, Eli was just trying to steal all the freeze dried ice cream.

We put together a little glowing outer space sensory bin.  

We did some math with stars.

We played comet catch.

But we did not get anywhere near all the things done that I was hoping to, so I think we will continue working on space stuff for another week at least!

After talking about astronauts, Nadia wanted to sing a song about them.

As we continued our space learning, we learned about the earth's rotation.

We also hunted for Constellations with watercolors.

We found this Solar System Song on youtube that the girls love. They say Venus looks like a pizza!

Comet Catch

    

As we looked through pictures of the solar system, I noticed the girls seemed intrigued by comets.  So we looked up more about comets.  We learned that they actually have 2 tails, a dust tail and an gas tail which get brighter the closer it gets to the sun. 

Image from Nasa

 We also learned that a comets orbit is more elliptical then a planet.  To demonstrate this a little better I made some balls into comets by taping a blue streamer and a yellow streamer to them.  Then I had the girls toss the balls over a larger ball (the sun) placed on top of the water table. The result was a much longer orbit then the circular ones of a planet. I tried to get them to throw it underhand to complete the orbit, but they wouldn't for some reason.

Then they decided it was just as much fun to run in a big oval around the water table while holding their comets.

Eventually the tails got a bit tattered, especially if Eli got a hold of them, but they had fun with their comets until then.  They were even making them talk to each other once they were done flying them around (everything talks in their world).

Space Sensory Bin

 My original plan for the space sensory bin was to make moon sand, but my moon sand didn't turn out right. It was still fun for play as Sandy Oobleck, but definitely not moon sand!  We did find a little package of glowing sand at the store a while back; I decided this would  be a good time to try it!.

 

I was a bit disappointed when I read the instructions, and it said it would only glow for 4 hours!  I was hoping it would recharge like glow in the dark stars do.  We already had it, so we needed to use it.  It came with 3 tiny pouches of sand (3 different colors).  The girls had to mix it to activate the glow.  

Then we added it to the bin, followed by the glowing planets.  I had the girls tell me the planets in order from the sun (center of the bin) as we put them in. Then I let them add all the stars.

Bin in the light.

Glowing bin.

Bria was most interested in sorting the stars by size.  Nadia was intrigued by the fact that every time the camera flashed the stars glowed brighter.  Obviously the pictures were either glowing box or kids.  I couldn't get a good picture where you could appreciate both.  If you are wondering about the clothes and shoe, they are in their closet.

She wanted me to flash the sun again.

After they were finished they removed all the stars and planets and mixed all the sand together.  I helped them make the Milky Way (sort of).

After Eli got up we carefully let him see the glowing sand.  He squealed a few times and then reached to grab it.  I knew he would try to eat it, so his hands were not allowed! They were all fascinated by the glow effect, and the girls were really excited when I told them we could hang some of the stars in their room after they were washed!