Activity Set – Stars
Lesson – Looking at Stars
Introduction – Discuss what stars are. They are giant glowing balls of gas. The closest star to the Earth is the Sun. Stars are there all the time, but we can only see them at nighttime when the sky is dark.
Ask the children to close their eyes and sing Twinkle Little Star, while really thinking about the words.
Introduce the term ‘constellations’ and explain that a constellation is a group of stars in the night sky that make up a recognisable picture or pattern. It is like a game of connecting the dots. Show the children some simple constellations and ask them to guess what it is. There are some great visuals online.
Children will then create their own constellation. Each child will be given black card,a white chalk pen and a ruler. They can think of a name for their constellation.
At the end of the lesson the children can take turns to guess what each constellation is a picture of. We can then create our very own night sky by displaying the creations on the wall.