Fun Thermometer Reading in Space

Vito loved our penguin thermometer reading activity , and because of this, I have to include something similar in our Outerspace Preschool Mini Unit.  This is great for learning how to recognize “tens” and how to read a thermometer.

The Space and The Solar System Learning Materials

Happy to share our Space and Solar System Learning Pack which is now available in my shop.  These are so beautiful!  I made the cards years ago and Mavi has been frequently using them, especially in finding inspirations in his drawings.

Sparkly Planets for your Solar System

We’ve done this before (in 2013) and we made another one again! Creating our planets for our solar system using aluminium foil. Have done this before?  I mentioned the source of this activity in my previous post, read it here.

First Great Lesson: Experiments on the Laws of the Universe

It’s that time of the year in our home wherein we're doing "The Great Lessons". Maria Montessori’s plan for the framework of elementary education is cosmic education and cosmic education is attained via telling the five great stories and followed by key lessons. These stories are typically told in the beginning of the Montessori school year for lower elementary and repeated ever year. This is our second year of the great lessons and I decided to document it so you can replicate it in your homes as well.

Montessori For Everyone has a beautiful summary of what The "Five Great Lessons" are all about. This post is all about the First Great Lesson: The Beginning, and we'll showcase the experiments to demonstrate the basic laws governing our universe.

Introducing the Solar System to Preschoolers

In line with our Days of Creation activities, the boys and I talked about how the universe came to be.  Mavi used his Usborne Fact Cards once again to review some solar system concepts and this made Vito get into the mood of exploring the planets as well.  

Learning About the Phases of the Moon for Preschoolers

The boys had a blast learning about the phases of the moon last week.  We worked on this during our Goodnight Moon Unit and even though this was mainly for Vito, I decided to include Mavi as well.  With this, I prepared two sets of learning materials:  one for a preschooler and the other is for older kids (elementary).  This post is on how you can introduce the moon and its phases to kids from 3years and older.

Science Experiments: Making CRATERS

Such a lovely activity for my kids! We had fun dropping balls of all sizes here and there.  

Objective:
1.  To identify the type of surface where craters are formed.

Materials Needed:

an aluminum foil, the bigger the better

soft material like a newspaper, a rug or towel

balls or rocks

Procedure:
1.  Lay the soft material in the ground like a newspaper a rug or a towel.
2.  On top of it, lay the foil.

3.  Stand at the edge of the foil and drop the ball or rock at the center of the foil.  Note be decided to use the mini basketball because we realized that golf balls made a small impact.
4.  Repeat this process on a hard floor.  This time it was Vito’s turn to drop the ball.

5.  Examine both pieces of the foil.
Findings:
The ball that was dropped in the foil on a soft surface (first image below) made a larger impression compared to the foil lying on a hard floor (second image).  You can immediately see the impression when the ball is dropped in a soft surface!  Look at them, they look like craters!

You can barely see an impression here, but Vito did dropped the ball a few times.
What happened?
The ball that was dropped in the softer surface sank, allowing more of the ball to be pressed against the foil.  In effect, this created those “holes” in the foil.  This is similar to the case of a meteorite (stone or metal in space) when striking a soft surface, it creates a larger imprint that are shaped like holes called craters.  Craters are best formed when meteorites strikes soft, powdery surfaces like that in the moon!  Why not check out real pictures of the surface of the moon from NASA!

You might also want to check our previous science experiments:

• Why do stars twinkle?
• Solubility of different substances in water.

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Science Experiments: Twinkle Twinkle Stars and {Learn & Play Link Up}

I love simple and easy to prepare experiments.  That’s why when we received a Janice VanCleave’s book as present last year, I was so elated! I love her books of experiments!  So we are trying some of it and so far the boys are enjoying it!
Objective:  To simulate the twinkling of stars in sky.

Materials needed:

a large square foil

glass bowl (preferably 2 liters)

tap water

a torch/flashlight

pencil

Procedure:
1.  Crumple your square foil and place it on a table or on a floor.
2.  Fill your clear bowl with tap water and place it on top of the crumpled foil. 

3.  Darken the room by turning off the lights.  Hold the torch or flashlight above the bowl.  Distance from the bowl  is about 12 inches.
4.  Observe the foil through the undisturbed water.

5.  Now using your pencil, tap the surface of the water gently.  Observe the foil through the moving water.


What happened? 
The light rays reflecting from the foil when there was a movement in water appears to blur or twinkle. 

Why? 
The movement of the water causes the depth of the water to vary.  The light rays twinkle because they bend or refract in different direction when it passed through the different depths of water. 

This is similar to the light rays of the stars.  They appear to be twinkling when you are observing from earth because they refract differently as the light rays move through the different thickness of air in the atmosphere.  Scientifically, this twinkling phenomenon is called ‘scintillation’. 

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Source:  Janice VanCleave Astronomy

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

In relation to our activity this week, I am featuring space and astronomy themed activities!

Relative Size of the Sun Activity from Research Parent

The Earth, The Sun & Stars from Every Star is Different

Space Explorer Toolbox from Montessori By Mom

Sensory Play for Earth Day from Mama’s Happy Hive

Earth Day from Child Led Life

Now it’s time for this week’s link party! This is a BRAND new link up for all blog posts that include learn and play activities and hands-on education for kids. We are excited to read your blog posts and to see what you have to share! Please link up below and grab our button to display on your blog.

If you are a blogger, share your family friendly posts here. We are looking for things which include:

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The Planets and The Solar System (Part I)

Hello everyone! I'm back! Sorry for my absence as my time was eaten by chores and errands for the past few days. 

We're been doing a lot of Space and Astronomy activities lately and I wanted to share with you some of our activities.  We started off by reviewing the planets in the Solar System. The cards seen on the picture were from Usborne and while we identify the planets Mavi tried creating models using his plasticine.

(You can check this link to view our past activities)

We also play a game "guess the planet". I adapted this game from the toy which he received last Christmas.  He loves this game! 

I also took out our nomenclature cards and he worked on it as well.  For the link of the file, please click here or the image below.

On a separate day, Mavi tried using playdough to create another set of model planets.

I have to say the second batch look better :)

And just like the project that we did with the Phases of the Moon, Mavi wanted to decorate his room with planets too. And instead of simply painting them on a cardboard, we made a similar approach to this one.

I cut out circles for our planets and covered them with aluminum foil. We color the planets using Sharpies. 

  

And look how they turned out! They are so colorful and looks festive!  I love how it glittered on a black background!

Next step is to plot them into the "space", but since they're still a little bit wet we'll continue the rest of the work by tomorrow.  We'll identify the inner and outer planets, add some asteroids and stars and add labels as well.

           

And there you go!  Ideas for your planets and solar system.  I will share with you how this decor turned out once we're done. 

Happy Monday to all!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
Natural Homeschool's Montessori Linky

Phases of the Moon

It's my son's midterm break and I'm happy that we could do lots of activities now that he's at home the entire week.  Aside from the Internal Organs which we had earlier this month, we will also have lessons on Space and Astronomy.

Here are the activities we've been doing so far:

A Model of the Moon Phases.  We painted the phases for this year instead of using our felt moons :) 

 

He arranged the phases using the cards that we have and  a picture that we saw in Google.

 

 

And here's the finish product.  This artwork is now in his room.  He would refer to this at night whenever he checks for the phase the of the moon.

 

Observe and Describe. I also printed out this Moon Phases Mini-Book from Scholastic (please click the image below for the link of the file).  Here Mavi gets to describe the different phases.  I love how he can use one single word to describe the moon.

Moon Phase Calendar.  Every night we're checking out the moon and record it in the calendar which I made. If you are interested I made a generic calendar which you can use.  Just click on the image below for the link.

This recording will allow Mavi to learn how it all works!

 

Below is our reference.  We check this image (from Google) if the ones we are seeing is the same as the ones recorded in the internet :)

Here's a link to all astronomy related activities that we have done so far.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
Natural Homeschool's Montessori Linky

Space and Astronomy Unit

We've been watching too much alien movies (animation) that Mavi begins to show a lot of interest in planets and the solar system once again.  This month we're doing the Moon and Solar System once again. 

You can read past astronomy themed activities here.

I also made printable materials to go along with our study.  It include planets and the astronomy cards all in one file.

And you might be interested... I made cute printable for preschoolers! Oh I can't wait to use this to my little one!  It's a 40 pages file which includes the following:

(Click the image for the link)

• Beginning sound word cards
• Matching activity that consist of control cards, picture cards and labels
• Memory Game Cards
• Word cards for reading and spelling (or practice writing)
• 1– 10 Counting Cards
• Number Cards
• Patterning activities
• Sizing/Sorting Size/Ordering
• Color Matching
• Shape Matching
• Upper and lowercase letter matching

Right now, we're making a small painting project of the Moon's phases and before the week ends, we'll be doing more moon-related activities.  I'll be sharing these activities once we're done.

Thank you so much and have a nice day!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

The Solar System

We made use of our old learning materials in our Solar System activities.  These planets were printed 2011 and I totally forgot where I got it from.  In case you own the file or knows the link just leave me a comment so I can add it up. 

Here, Mavi is putting the planets in order while singing his Solar System song learned in his Montessori school.

We started using the fact book which I made.  My son loves learning the difference between the planets and always compare Jupiter (windy and stormy planet) to our place LOL.

Here’s where you can get the Space and Solar System pack which I made.  Aside from the Solar System it also includes Astronomy Cards and Fact Books.  

        

            

This coloring sheet of the Solar System was taken from The Helpful Garden (I love this blog!). Books we used:

Linking to: