We rocketed into Space this week and had a blast learning all about the Sun, stars, and planets! What kid doesn’t like completing a few space activities? Haven’t met one yet!
I loved teaching about Space with my seconds ( you can read about that here!) , so I knew my Space Pack would be a perfect supplement to our week.
To help “grow up” this pack a bit, I updated every activity and added over 30 new pages! You can check this pack out here in my TpT store.
Here’s a peek at what we did with some of these new space activities!
Close Reading About Space
For our close read this week, we read, “Our Planets in the Solar System“.
You can check this out on Amazon here! (affiliate link)
Such a great informational book! On Monday, I read the entire book and we discussed some important space-related terms (like orbit and rotate AND the difference!) We used these vocab sheets to better understand those terms. You guys, I SWEAR by this vocabulary routine! I am not really about skill and drill, but sometimes terms just need to be remembered, and these sheets take students through the words enough to own them!
(You can grab these here!)
Teacher tip! These terms are so tricky to learn because they are so closely related in their meanings. I found the best way to teach them was to actually “act it out” and physically orbit a desk and rotate in place.
Then, throughout the week, we would re-read a section of the book and discuss some of the facts presented or the way the author wrote a sentence.
Planet Style Hands-on Fun!
After re-reading the planets section, we used the information we gathered to create a classroom sized diagram of the solar system.
We also made these mini-step books. You can read about how to make a step book here!
On the inside, we illustrated each planet. The students also wrote two facts about them from the book.
Space Unit Creative Writing
We pulled in some creative writing using, “Arthur’s First Sleep Over” (you can check the video here!) as a launching point. After watching the video, we discussed how D.W. didn’t really get to meet a UFO, but wondered how cool it would be to actually have an alien friend! We used the brainstorm from my “It Came from Outer Space” activity to organize our thoughts and then used that to create a short creative expository writing on an alien!
Here are a few close-ups!
I love this XL one from my self-proclaimed non-writer!
After looking over his writing I called him an “author” (It actually has chapters!) He just beamed from ear-to-ear! Non-writer… hmph!
Sun and Stars in Science
In science, we explored the stars and the Sun. After reading and learning about stars, We created these cute little star crafts to showcase our learning. They wrote information that they had gathered from our reading in the space provided.
I NEEDED a little crafting in my week! You can take the girl out of a primary classroom but you can’t take the primary out of the girl! 😉
Design Your Own Constellation
We also read a little bit about constellations. So in centers, we made our own constellations and wrote a story about it. This is ALWAYS a crowd pleaser!
#writingcenterwin!
It was such a fun and fact filled week! But the best part happened at the end… We got a…
Say what?!
At my old school having this kind of technology was a thing of dreams! Although we have to share the cart with the rest of the 3rd-grade team, I can’t wait to start integrating more technology into my lessons! Any suggestions on apps?
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