“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher
{M is 4 1/2 years old}
M is in love with the moon.
It all began with If You Decide To Go To The Moon , by Faith McNulty: 
I heard about this book from Natalie over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns, and thought M would like it. Well, he did. He couldn’t get enough of it and was instantly fascinated with outer space in general, and the moon in particular. We have previously read books about outer space and the moon, but none of them sparked his interest as well as this one.
I heard about this book from Natalie over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns, and thought M would like it. Well, he did. He couldn’t get enough of it and was instantly fascinated with outer space in general, and the moon in particular. We have previously read books about outer space and the moon, but none of them sparked his interest as well as this one.So we began a very simple little moon unit.
We watched the launch of the space shuttle Discovery in February (yes, this is a pretty late post) live on the laptop:
It was thrilling, to say the least. He talked about it for days afterward. I couldn’t quite get him to understand that they weren’t going to the moon, but oh well. :) He loved learning about how everything is weightless in space and how the astronauts can float around inside of the space shuttle. He wanted to get into the nitty-gritty details of how they live in it, especially how they go to the bathroom. sigh. It’s all part of learning, right? ;)
It was thrilling, to say the least. He talked about it for days afterward. I couldn’t quite get him to understand that they weren’t going to the moon, but oh well. :) He loved learning about how everything is weightless in space and how the astronauts can float around inside of the space shuttle. He wanted to get into the nitty-gritty details of how they live in it, especially how they go to the bathroom. sigh. It’s all part of learning, right? ;)We played games with some beautiful space flashcards I picked up from Target over a year ago.
I was smart enough to get two sets at the time, although I wasn’t smart enough to think of a way to use them. But once M’s interest in all things outer space was in high gear, I remembered this post of Ticia’s, where she created a game for her kids using these same flashcards. Click on the link to her post to get the specific details. This was fun and as soon as one of us had a card covered we flipped it over and read all of the interesting information on the back. I think it would’ve gone a bit more quickly if we’d had more than just 2 players though, or if I had separated the flashcards into smaller groups.
I was smart enough to get two sets at the time, although I wasn’t smart enough to think of a way to use them. But once M’s interest in all things outer space was in high gear, I remembered this post of Ticia’s, where she created a game for her kids using these same flashcards. Click on the link to her post to get the specific details. This was fun and as soon as one of us had a card covered we flipped it over and read all of the interesting information on the back. I think it would’ve gone a bit more quickly if we’d had more than just 2 players though, or if I had separated the flashcards into smaller groups.We learned a bit about the phases of the moon too.
We watched this video:
We looked at this page of the Starchild website a bit:
The website is part of NASA, and has tons of interesting things for children to learn about. I highly recommend taking a look! We only went over the moon phases web page, but I think we’ll be back to learn more!
The website is part of NASA, and has tons of interesting things for children to learn about. I highly recommend taking a look! We only went over the moon phases web page, but I think we’ll be back to learn more! I made some moon phases Montessori-style 3-part cards. I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted online (for free anyway), so I used a public domain photo of the moon, and edited it to show the various phases:
We had an art project waiting for us as M matched up these cards and labels, and I felt like he was hurrying through it to get to something more fun. However, he has since talked about the “gibbous” moon on his own, so I guess some of it stuck! :)
M had fun making a little outerspace artwork. We used black paper, green and blue chalk dipped in water, aluminum foil, scissors, sequins, silver glitter glue, and two circle-shaped lids:
I showed M how to hold a lid and draw around it at the same time in order to draw a circle. He cut one circle from foil for the moon, and one was drawn onto the black paper with chalk. He drew some areas of land on his “earth circle” and then colored it in with wet chalk (wet chalk on black paper is fun, and a good art project all on its own).
He drew a face on his moon, then sparkled up the the rest of outer space with some sequin and glitter glue stars:
On a trip to visit my parents, we were lucky enough to find this amazing book in a box my mom wanted me to look through:
I’m not sure if or where it can be found, but it is truly amazing. :) It is filled with facts, and after reading it, you can unfold the pages:
Open it up:
And you have a 4-foot long space shuttle model! M was in space shuttle heaven. :) There’s a lot of great details, like a satellite in the cargo area:
And a pull-out section showing the control panels and the area the astronauts live in:
(sorry that picture didn’t turn out so well!)
I’m not sure if or where it can be found, but it is truly amazing. :) It is filled with facts, and after reading it, you can unfold the pages:
Open it up:
And you have a 4-foot long space shuttle model! M was in space shuttle heaven. :) There’s a lot of great details, like a satellite in the cargo area:
And a pull-out section showing the control panels and the area the astronauts live in:
(sorry that picture didn’t turn out so well!)There were several other moon-related books we read; here are M’s favorites…
The Moon, by Seymour Simon:
This is long, but packed with information. M wanted to read this one several times a day for two weeks straight.
This is long, but packed with information. M wanted to read this one several times a day for two weeks straight.
Happy Birthday, Moon, by Frank Asch:
(M loves all the Moonbear books by Asch!)
I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner, and Weekly Wrap-Up, as well as Science Sunday! Be sure to check them all out!
Have a beautiful day! :)
