Some Moon Ideas: Twinkle Twinkle Little Moon Twinkle twinkle little Moon How I wonder what you're doin' Up above the world so high Like a Pancake in the sky Twinkle Twinkle little moon How I wonder what you're doin' Moon Craters--Give of the children a sturdy foam paper plate to work with. Glue on dried beans & other assorted things to provide texture for the moon surface. When it dries cover with aluminum foil & tuck the edges over so it doesn't come unwrapped. Then press down gently. This will reveal craters and fissures, etc. on the moon's surface. Purchase some toothpick flags to stick on the moons surface. Sun and Moon Dough Art Materials: Flour, salt, oil, cream of tartar, water, yellow and blue food coloring, mixing bowl, teaspoons, tablespoons, saucepan, stove. Activity: Make playdough by combining the following items in a mixing bowl: 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, 2 tablespoons oil, 4 teaspoons cream of tartar, 2 cups water. Divide this mixture into two bowls. Add four drops of yellow food coloring for the sun mixture and four drops of blue food coloring for the moon mixture. The consistency should be runny, so put the mixture in a saucepan and cook it on a stove or hot plate until it forms a ball. When it's cool, have the children make a large sun and a large moon. They can make moon craters with thumb imprints. Then let the playdough harden. Moon Balls Ingredients: 2 C. Peanut butter, 1 1/3 C. Honey, 2 C. Raisins 2 C. Dry milk 3 1/2 C. Graham cracker crumbs (keep 1/2 c. separate) Mix dry milk, raisins, and 3 c. graham cracker crumbs. Add honey and peanut butter, mix will (hands do best). Roll into small balls. Place remaining 1/2 c. of graham cracker crumbs in a large baggie. Place several balls at a time into the baggie and shake, then place on a cookie sheet. Chill, then eat. Have you ever seen the Moon (Sung to the tune of "The More We Get Together") Have you ever seen The moon, the moon, the moon, Have you ever seen The moon, the moon, the moon, way up in the sky. Look this way, and that way. Look this way, and that way. Have you ever seen The moon, the moon, the moon, So very high. Flannel Board Numbers... You will need cut from felt: Large blue circle 10 rocket ships, numbered 1-10 Large yellow circle Pretend the felt board is outer space. Place the moon on the top part and place the 10 rocket ships around the board. Ask a child to come to the board and find rocket ship number 1, take it off the board , fly it around the room and land it back on the moon. Next have a child find rocket ship number 2 and so on. When all the rockets are on the moon place the Earth on the board. "Blast" the rockets off the moon and have them fly (or throw them) to different children. When all the rockets are with children call out for rocket number 1 to "fly back to earth". Continue until all the rockets have landed safely at home! Astronauts Round the Moon... (The bear went over the mountain) Astronauts went round the moon, Astronauts went round the moon, Astronauts went round the moon, And what do you think they saw? They saw____ They saw____ They saw____ And that is what they saw. We'll Be Orbiting Round The Moon... (She'll be Coming Round the Mountain) We'II be orbiting round the moon yes we will. We'll be orbiting round the moon, yes we wiIl, We'll be orbiting round the moon, yes we will, We'll be orbiting round the moon, We'll be orbiting round the moon, We'll be orbiting round the moon, yes we will. More: We'll be landing on the moon, yes we will... We'll be walking on the moon, yes we will... We'll be blasting off again, yes we will... We'll be landing back on Earth, yes we will... Moon Craters... Use the bubble wrap that comes in packages and cover it with plaster of paris. Let dry and peel off. Wouldn't this look like moon craters or such? Then they let the children paint it. Stuffed Moons... Using newsprint cut two patterns out (Fairly Large)stuffed with newspaper and then painted them. Then hang them around the room. Read: Moon Cake Frank Asch Happy Birthday Moon Frank Asch Babar Visits Another Planet Frank Asch Moon Game Frank Asch Papa Get The Moon For Me Eric Carle I Want To Be An Astronaunt Byron Barton Housekeeping May include: hoses, helmets, moon boots, white clothing for their space suits, gloves, cereal box jet packs or large cardboard tubes taped together as air tanks, with thin rope looped through each tank as shoulder straps, milk jug helmets, NASA Ground Control panel: Large sheet of paper-draw on controls or use milk jug caps, orange juice caps, etc., old microphone and earphones. Meteors can be balls of aluminum foil wrapped around long strips of plastic. Tie foil fringes on to end to play meteor catch. Large box for a space ship. Remember to make paper mache planets to hang around the room as well as glittered cardboard stars to hang. Microphones can be made by covering toilet paper tubes with tinfoil. Also telescopes may be made with this same method of covering tissue paper holders. Poke small holes in the end of the foil so the children can see the light when they look at the light through their telescopes. Here is a great science experiment for the kids.... Take steel wool(no soap) sand and water... Get a clear plastic or glass bowl..... add sand.... then have the children shredd steel wool and mix it through the sand. Soak the sand and keep wet.... The steel wool will rust and stain the sand... VWah La!!!!MARS.... We did it last year. The kids loved it. It took about a week... Great for ovservation skills also.... NIGHT SKY PICTURES Gave each child a white piece of paper and black paint. They painted the paper black, then we sprinkled silver glitter on it. The children seemed to like them, and talked bout how they were going to look outside that night to see if they real sky looked like their pictures. STAR GAZERS Give each child an empty paper tubes. Cover the end of the tube with a piece of black paper. Let the children gently push a toothpick through the black paper to create tiny holes. Give the children markers to decorate their scopes. To use them, have the children hold their scopes up to the light and look through the uncovered end. This will look like a mini-planetarium. SPACE FOOD Put 2 tablespoons of chocolate instant pudding and place it in a zip-lock bag. Then add 1/4 c of milk and zip it back up. Have students knead it gently and set it in refrigerator for 5-10 minutes. Then eat snip a corner of the bag and squeeze the pudding into the mouth. MOON ROCK COOKIES: Use any simple sugar cookie recipe and add lots of nuts to it! SPACE INFORMATION, POSTERS, COLORED PHOTOS and a 65 page pre-school curriculum from NASA Contact NASA: Ritter, Service Coordinator NASA Spacelink Project Computer Sciences Corp. Office phone 205-544-1222 Fax: 205-544-8899 e-mail: rittemb@spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov http://spacelink.nasa.gov TASTY STARS: Explain to the children that stars are burning hot. Scientists can tell how hot a star is by its color. The coolest starts are red. Orange, yellow and greenish stars are hotter. White stars are even hotter, and blue stars are the hottest. Cut toasted bread into star-shapes with cookie cutters Have the children spread jam on their stars. They can choose strawberry jam for a cool star, orange marmalade for an average start, or grape jelly for the hottest star. MATH EXTENSION Trace 5 stars in a row on a sheet of paper and make a copy for each child. Draw a reference chart of star colors from coolest to hottest, labeling them 1 to 5. Have the children color and number the stars on their paper to match the progression of numbers and heat intensity on the chart. SPACE ROCKS/MOON ROCKS Take a smooth rock & color it all over with crayons. Add as much coloring as possible. Don't be afraid of pressing hard with the crayons. Now take a foil lined pan & bake the rock/rocks in the oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes. Let cool. When cool, polish with an old sock or cloth. Decorating the room SKY CEILING Drape dark blue sheets (can be dyed), in billows from the ceiling. Tape on shape stars. FLYING SAUCERS Hang flying- saucer aluminum pie plates (or use foil-covered paper plates) from the ceiling. To make satellites, cover ping pong balls with foil or buy Styrofoam balls and stick pipe cleaners into them. STUFFED MOONS Make newsprint moons that we stuffed with newspaper and then paint them. Hang them around the room. MOON WALK Create a moon landscape for the children by placing pillows all over the floor. Cover the floor with white or yellow sheets. Attach thick sponges to the bottom of the children's shoes with rubber bands for space shoes. Play dramatic music as the children walk across the moon landscape. Art- SHOOTING STARS After talking about shooting stars- I take black construction paper and let them marble paint with yellow and white to make their own shooting stars Art- MARTIAN MURAL: Cover a table with black paper, set out different-colored chalk, and let the children create a martian mural. HOT ASTEROID GAME Ahead of time, write on scraps of paper lots of suggestions for silly activities, like "Make a scary alien face" or "Sing 'Happy Birthday to You' in martian." Put the scraps in a bowl. Have the kids sit in a circle and pass around the hot asteroid (a medium-size ball made of aluminum foil) while you play music. When the music stops, whoever is holding the asteroid picks a slip of paper from the bowl and performs whatever activity is suggested. PRETEND PLAY. Outdoors - CRATER WALK Place a number of fires flat on the ground. Have the children walk or run around them. DRESS UP Bring in materials for the children to dress up as astronauts. The disposal painting overalls sold in building supply stores make neat spacesuits. Or create space suits out of white garbage bags using permanent markers. Old hockey helmets that have been sprayed painted white or silver are great for helmets. Or make helmets out of used ice cream containers (saved from local ice cream shop) or make paper bag helmets. Other items may include: hoses, moon boots, white clothing for their space suits, gloves, cereal box jet packs or large cardboard tubes taped together as air tanks, NASA GROUND CONTROL PANEL: Large sheet of poster board with drawn on controls or use milk jug caps, orange juice caps, etc., old microphone and earphones. Place ground control panels on either side of an easel, with chairs and equipment available for those children to use to "communicate" with the rocket. SPACE SHIP Make a space ship out of a large box . WE'RE FLYING TO THE MOON (Tune: The Farmer in the Dell) We're flying to the moon We're flying to the moon. Blast off, away we go We're flying to the moon. Other verses: We're going in a spacecraft We're walking out in space We're landing on the moon We're collecting moon rocks We're flying back to Earth We're landing on the Earth JUMPING ON THE MOON The children jump to this poem, can use the poem for turns on a junior trampoline. One jump, we jump to the moon, Two jumps, we jump to a star, Three and four, maybe more We don't know where we are! STAR PUZZLES. Cut out five to ten star shapes out of tag board. Number the top half with numbers one through ten and the bottom half with corresponding dots to the number. Laminate and cut apart. Have the children put the star puzzles together. Planets For each planet, I cut a circleshape out of two pieces of white or brown buther paper. Let the kids paint the planet the appropriate color (Mars is red) and then we staple and stuff it. After all the planets are complete, we hang a big sun in one corner of the room and then hang each of the planets in order from the sun as they appear from the solar system. I also try to hang the name of each planet with the planet as well as a very simple fact. The kids love to tell all visitors all the planets. We are just finishing up The Moon. Here are a few websites I found that were very useful, particularly the first one. Tons of great large photos of the moon there. My dcks loved it!. http://www.windows.umich.edu/cgi-bin/tour.cgi?link=../moon/moon_il.html&sw=f alse&sn=324991&d=/moon&edu=mid&br=graphic&cd=false&tour=&fr=f http://www.littleexplorers.com/Misfor.shtml http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/earth.html#f http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/2221/space.html http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/kids/ I just did a space unit in conjuntion with John Glenn. We had a fun messy time when we made the paper mache planets (and the sun) with balloons and home made paper mache. I tried to scale the sizes (a bit hard) and then the kids painted them. We hung them from the ceiling and attached their names to them. The kids got really involved and realized that we needed moons and stars so we made those too (out of tag board and glitter for stars and styrofoam packing stuff for moons.) We also made mobiles with crayola white light clay on hangers. it was a pain a lot of teacher work but the kids liked them Also what would you bring with you if you went into space SPACE Go to the library and find a book about planets. There will be a million of them. Pick one out that has a lot of good, colorful pictures. Talk about the old familiar planets; Venus - Jupiter -Mars - Saturn -Pluto. Give the children the paper mache planets they made yesterday and let them decide which planet theirs will be painted to look like. This will determine which colors of paint you will need at your art table. Fast & Slow You will have to make a music tape before the children arrive for this activity. Tape slow, instrumental music for about twenty seconds. Then, switch to fast, crazy music. Every twenty seconds or so, change the music. Go from slow to fast to medium back to fast. Tell the children to move the way the music makes them want to move. To tie this activity into the space theme, talk to the children about gravity. Explain that on the moon, the astronauts move in slow motion but on the Earth we can move as fast as we like. Space helmet Bag Straws Crayons or markers Long underwear Cereal or oatmeal box Yarn or string Paper towel tubes Cutting implements (for adult use only) Tape This activity is good for everyday fun, costume parties, and, of course, Halloween. First, make a paper bag space helmet. Glue or tape on straws to simulate wires,tubes, and other important gizmos one would expect to find on a space suit. (You can also draw them with crayons or markers.) The suit itself can consist of long underwear or pj's. Before your child blasts off,make an air tank out of an oatmeal or cereal box. Make shoulder straps out of yarn or string (watch young children). To make an air hose, tape several paper towel tubes together (slit the ends to make it easier to combine them), then make cuts every inch or two that almost pass through the tube as if slicing a loaf of French bread. Tape one end to the air tank and the other to the helmet. Homemade Dashboards Cardboard box Plastic container lids Brads Crayons and markers Cardboard tubes Bottle caps Extracting our son from the driver's seat of our car proved to be one of the greatest parenting challenges we had ever faced. Life became easier when we gave him his own dashboard. You can make a dashboard, too. Find a sturdy cardboard box at least 18 inches wide. Next, attach parts--lots of them. (Here comes the payoff from saving all those plastic lids and odd-size plastic gizmos we mentioned in the Introduction.) Punch a hole in the top of a yogurt container, and affix it to the box with a brad (a pronged metal affixer you can purchase at any stationery store). You now have a free-spinning dial. Put markings on the dial and the box to make a meter. Affix a paper plate the same way--the dashboard now has a steering wheel. A paper towel tube makes a splendid gear shift lever, and bottle tops make excellent buttons. The more dials and buttons and moving parts, the more interesting the dashboard. Be sure to leave a slot for a key! We used ours in the car at first, then found that the dashboard can be used for off-road travel, too. Your child can use the dashboard to explore the depths of the ocean, or even the outer reaches of the galaxy. Moon Balls (serves MANY) Ingredients: 2 C. Peanut butter 1 1/3 C. Honey 2 C. Raisins 2 C. Dry milk 3 1/2 C. Graham cracker crumbs (keep 1/2 c. separate) 1. Mix dry milk, raisins, and 3 c. graham cracker crumbs 2. Add honey and peanut butter, mix will (hands do best) 3. Roll into small balls 4. Place remaining 1/2 c. of graham cracker crumbs in a large baggie 5. Place several balls at a time into the baggie and shake, then place on a cookie sheet. 6. Chill then eat Space Craft Simulator Every successful mission must be simulated in a fake craft. Have the children sit very close to each other inside a rope circle. Lead them through a take off, a bumpy ride and a landing. You will have to be animated to pull this off. Poem Five brave astronauts floated into space. The first one disappeared without a trace. The second one somersaulted past the moon. The third one entered the atmosphere too soon. The fourth one took off counting ten to zero. And the fifth one landed safely like a hero Galactic Mobiles Dough recipe: 2 1/2 c. Boiling water 2 c. salt 4 c. flour Add salt to water, then stir into flour. Have the children knead the dough until it is a good consistency for shaping. Let them roll the dough out and use cookie cutters to cut out star and circle shapes. Each child should have a couple of stars and a couple of circles. Don't forget to put a hole at the top of each shape for hanging. Bake shapes in the oven at 250 degrees for 2 - 3 hours, checking frequently after 2 two hours. Paint them another day. Cut & Color Table-Star Gazers Give each child an empty toilet paper tube. Cover the end of the tube with a piece of black paper. Let the children gently push a toothpick through the black paper to create tiny holes. Give the children markers to decorate their scopes. To use them, have the children hold their scopes up to the light and look through the uncovered end. This will look like a mini-planetarium. Creative Art-Planet Painting The children should have decided which planet they will be turning their paper mache balls into at circle time. Put out the paint colors needed and supply them with plenty of brushes. More than likely, someone will be unhappy with the outcome of his planet. Remind the children that there are many planets yet to be discovered and theirs can be one of those. Undiscovered planets can look however we want them to look.. Outside-Meteor Fight Have a good, old fashioned water balloon fight. This should be optional. Some children will not enjoy having meteors hurled at them. Set up the dramatic play area as a spacecraft. Bring in materials for the children to dress up as astronauts. The disposal painting overalls sold in building supply stores make neat spacesuits. Old hockey helmets that have been sprayed painted white or silver are great for helmets. . space sites: >Canadian Space Guide ZIA Education Astronomy Page The Nine Planets StarChild: A Learning Centre for Young Astronomers We created a rocket out of washing machine boxes and used ice cream containers from a local ice cream shop for our helmets. We also created space suits out of white garbage bags using permanent markers. We attempted to eat pudding from ziplock baggies through straws to understand how difficult it is to eat in space. We wrote our own ABC's of space and created and named our own constellations from splatter paint star pictures. The children learned a lot about space by making their own space fact book. Then tell the students to spread out the star pictures all over their sheet of black construction paper.When they are done give them a piece of white chalk and tell them to connect the stars to form constellation pictures.Then have the children name their constellations.Hang up their constellations on a bulletin board, and title it "In the Night's Sky I See..." Make a mobile from styrofoam balls that represents the planets. Tune: The Farmer in the Dell We're flying to the moon We're flying to the moon. Blast off, away we go We're flying to the moon. Other verses: We're going in a spacecraft We're walking out in space We're landing on the moon We're collecting moon rocks We're flying back to Earth We're landing on the Earth Stars fingerplay At night I see the twinkling stars (fist up and open hands over your head) And a great big smiling moon (circle arms overhead) My Mommy tucks me into bed (Lay pointer of one hand across the palm of the other hand) And sings a good-night tune. (Rock your hands back and forth) Make a moon walking area. This is how....Place pillows all over the floor. Then cover the pillows and floor with a sheet. Attach x-large sized thick sponges to the children's feet with rubber bands for space shoes. Let the children walk over the area. Play space walk music for a real dramatic effect. Just a simple experiment - decorate a lunch size bag with a picture of a rocket or shuttle and show the children the principle of flight by blowing up a balloon, inserting it into the bag, and then turning it loose and having the bag "take-off' into space. My 4 year olds wanted to do this all day long. We also made rocket airplanes(out of paper), each varying in size, and threw them and measured the distance they each traveled. Have the children guess ahead of time which one will go the farthest. Moon Craters- Use the bubble wrap that comes in packages and covered it with plaster of paris. Let dry and peel off. Wouldn't this look like moon craters or such? Then they let the children paint it. I might try it and see what happens! Create your own planet surface! Rocketships Materials: Toilet tissue tubes, Aluminum foil, 1/2 circle taped or stapled into cone shape, Glue, Brushes, Crepe paper strips (red), Tape. 1. Keep circle halves cut and ready to use. (A coffee can lid makes the perfect size nozzle if cut in half.) 2. give each child a toilet tissue roll and a sheet of aluminum foil to wrap around the roll. Staple together the half circle to make a cone shape. 3. Child should glue the cone onto the roll. 4. Now tape on crepe paper 'flames' from the bottom of the roll. Starlight mobile Use cookie cutter shapes for moon crescents & stars (or draw your own) to trace a moon crescent & three stars. Trace around each shape twice onto aluminum foil and cut out the traced figures. Glue the foil crescents to each side of the cardboard moon. Glue tinsel to each of the cardboard stars. Glue the foil stars to each side of the cardboard stars. Tape a dark-colored thread from each star to the moon. Glue a long piece of thread along the inside curve of the moon.When the glue dries, hang the mobile in your window. SONG; I'm a Little Robot (I'm a Little teapot) I'm a little robot, watch me walk, Push my button, now I can talk. When I get all oiled up I can work. Even if I have to jerk. I'm a little robot, watch me go, Sometimes fast, sometimes slow When I get all worn out you can see, All I need is a new battery. Jean Warren BLOCK AREA-Add little space people(you can find these at department stores) For a fun filled trip into space, use Greg and Steve's An Adventure In Outer Space from their On The Move CD. Or take your class on its own imaginary trip through outer space. Explain lack of gravity and its relationship to movement. Challenge the children to walk, run, skip, hop, gallop, leap, and crawl through space. Go for a long nature walk on the moon and see what kinds of imaginary items children discover. Or play my Moving Star game. Fly to one star, land, and discover that the only way to move on that star is to do jumping jacks. Then step back into your space ship and land on the "crawling" star...the "hopping" star etc. Make Your Own Rocket You Need: sausage-shaped balloon string clothespin straw scissors tape You Do: 1) Cut a long piece of string. 2) Thread the string through straw. 3) Inflate balloon. 4) Put clothespin on neck of balloon. 5) Tape balloon onto straw. 6) Release clothespin and watch rocket go! Try out different shapes of balloons. What happens if you use different string (fishing wire, yarn, etc)? We've made astronaut helmets from bags and cartons, astronaut patches that I laminated and made into pins, (ouch for 3s), they made wrist comminucators, we made a spaceship from a refrigerator box,squeezed partially frozen Otter Pops for snack, Twinkle Twinkle would be good, we sleep out one night together, Hello Moon by Frank Asch, scratch art with a space theme, Greg and Steve have a space song for dramatics (that lasts a terrifically long time) I wish I could remember more as July 20 is approaching fast and that's the anniversary of the lunar landing! Four Little stars Four little stars winking at me. One shot off, then there were three! three little stars With nothing to do. One shot off, Then there were two! Two little stars Afraid of the sun. One shot off, Then there was one! One little star Alone is no fun. It shot off, then there was none! Climb aboard the Spaceship! sung to itsy bitsy spider Climb aboard the spaceship, We're going to the moon. hurry and get ready, We're going to blast off soon. Put on your helmets And buckle up real tight. Here comes the countdown, Let's count with all our might. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1---BLAST OFF!!