Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Continuing our exploration to space!

Hello Purple Room Families,

It feels so engaging when our children show such an immense interest in learning about space! After exploring constellations, we soon got involved in learning all about the sun and the moon. Sharing facts and information about space has become an exciting part of our circle time every day. Friends came with books from home and other informational sources that intrigued them and shared with all their other friends in the classroom. The sun was our focus first, and we talked about it being the gaseous ball -- the biggest, the hottest, the most powerful, yet kind, giving, and taking responsibility for all the life on Earth. Friends enjoyed making their own golden sun with the main ball in the middle and the fire sparks as the rays...










We learned about our own satellite, the moon, and went ahead to do some hands-on activities to be able to understand certain concepts.

We first watched the footage of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, heared him say the famous quote, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," saw him land, dance, sing, and even ride the space rover! The children went oooh and aaah and talked excitedly about being an astronaut themselves one day and visiting these exciting places!






Next, we talked about the surface of the moon. How did it get so full of craters? We used a tub of flour and different-sized rocks that our friends dropped in one by one to make craters in the flour!













We also created our own moon...



Friends added glitter and made craters with their fingers....



We decided to hang it up so that friends could have moon adventures!






Making "moon sand" and exploring the sensory feel of it!



Well how could we enjoy our space dreams without a rocket ship? We had to be creative and use our comfy box to transform it into our own rocket. We added holographic starry paper and fun lights to make it look high-tech! Friends made many imaginary journeys and came back with a lot of stories to share :)






Dressing up like astronauts...






We even had a bear join in the space adventure! They named it Beary-naut :)



Now this was neat. While children were playing marble runs, some children brought to my attention how some marbles looked exactly like the colors of the planets. This sparked an idea in our minds and we made our own "planets in their orbits" model on paper using marbles and tape. It was such an out-of-the-box type of thinking coming from them! None of the adults had seen the marbles that way, but preschoolers approach everything with a unique eye and creative connections. I love it!



We first lined them up after sharing facts and getting into a deep discussion...



In order to save the model we transferred it on a paper and created orbits. The children knew without a doubt that each planet has its own orbit and it has to stay there :)



The best part of this project was when they explained the model in their own words to their parents and grandparents as they came in :)



Letter Z!

Making Zucchini bread, practicing reading recipes...



We tested a few ingredients before putting them in our recipe and hypothesizing how that ingredient will taste in the bread..

Lemon to test...



Cinnamon to test...



After the tested ingredients were approved by our friends :) we proudly put them in!

Learning about the process of grating zucchini...



We definitely needed the help of some extra muscles to do the mixing!






Collaging letter Z into a zebra...






Zebra stripes painting with tissue rolls and yarn...



We are throughly enjoying our outer space theme and the children are excited to know what is going to come next in terms of both discussion and activities. Stay tuned!


Hugs,
Teacher Rashida.