Plan for Space week
Monday
Begin with reading the book “The Way Back Home” by Oliver Jeffers.- a book about helping a Martian get back to the moon.
Ask questions about the story. Ask children to point to the alien or the boy. Identify differences. Talk about the sky and what we see in the sky. Introduce the words suggested and their corresponding pictures and create a Space Corner.
Follow up activity: Sponge paint paper plate to create a moon.
Tuesday
Revise things we can see in the sky. Focus on the sun. It gives us light and heat, dries clothes, is yellow etc. Explore night time and daytime by showing pictures of the sky. No sun – it’s dark, cooler, no sun in the sky, stars, moon. Add the I
Follow up activity: Experiment with a cube of ice placed in direct sunlight and a cube of ice placed in the shade. Predict which will melt first. Time both and record the number of minutes it took for each to melt.
Wednesday
Show a YouTube clip of a shuttle launch eg Shuttle Launch (Hubble 2010- STS 125) to the first landing on the moon.
Talk about the astronauts and what they are wearing. Where are they going? How did they get there? What did they wear on their heads? Add some of these words with pictures to the Space corner.
Create a simple rocket – See Rocket mice on YouTube. Cut a quarter circle of paper and roll into a cone shape and tape together. Draw eyes and whiskers on the paper. Place on an empty plastic milk carton. Predict what will happen to the mouse. Squeeze hard. The paper mouse should pop upwards. Mark the place it lands. Repeat changing the force you squeeze the carton each time. Don’t forget to predict where the mouse will land and record the distance each time. Put a rocket in the space corner.
Thursday
Show a presentation on Google slides of different night skies. Children name what they can see. Introduce the constellation of stars which make the plough. Draw lines on one slide to mark the plough clearly. Remaining slides should all show the plough and ask children to find it in the night sky pictures. Follow up activity: paint a star and decorate with gold glitter. When dry hang them and the moons in the Space corner.
Friday
Two experiments
1. Dancing Raisins.
2 Alka Seltzer rocket.