This week we are learning about astronomy. We were kindly gifted the Astronomy Project from Build A Project to review and go along with our studies and the kids really enjoyed doing the projects Nancy outlined in the lesson plan.
Prior to starting our lessons, I gathered our science and junior encyclopedia that talk about constellations and space, as well as our Usborne books: 1) Astronomy, and 2) the Sun, Moon, and Stars.
For one of the activities in the Astronomy Project, the kids made a pasta shaped constellation of Orion. We used rotini pastas for connecting the lines and the elbow pasta to represent the stars within the constellation. So fun!
The next activity from the Astronomy project was graphing! This was exciting as we haven’t really covered graphing like this before! The kids graphed 5 different constellations on a graphing paper. Both of my boys learned graphing quickly and really liked this idea.
The Astronomy Project suggested using an umbrella for this constellation-graphing lesson, which would have been so awesome, but we didn’t have extra umbrellas on hand.
I ended up putting a black construction paper under the graph so that way when the kids were done, they could poke holes on the graphing points using a tack. Then, we could shine a flashlight through the holes to see the constellations on our wall. This was really cool!!
If you’re interested in checking out this Astronomy Project and other cool projects, head on over to Nancy’s page at Build A Project.
My kids really enjoyed this topic as stars are so fascinating. I can’t wait for our local science museum @orlandosciencecenter to open back up so we can visit their “Our Planet” floor as well as watching Apollo 11 in their Cinedome.
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