Rocket Ships!

On Monday we learned about rocket ships!  I started circle time with this book.  I asked the kids what they know about rocket ships.  They were surprised to learned that the rocket boosters separate from the space shuttle after it blasts off.  They were also surprised to learn that rocket ships land on Earth with wheels, much like an airplane!

I set out our letter cards we learned from this month (Rr, Ss, and Zz).  We pretended to blast off and land on the different letter "planet" cards as we sang, 

"Climb into the rocket ship,

The rocket ship, the rocket ship.

Climb into the rocket ship,

We're going to the (Moon)!"  

(Sung to the tune of "The Muffin Man.")

We switched the word "Moon" for other planet names or the names of the letter card we landed on.

I took out new CVC word puzzles!  We worked on these together as a group before I set it out as station to explore with.  I encouraged the kids to pretend the hands-on letters were rocket ships.  They could blast them up in the air and land them on the word puzzle card.  We tried all the letters in each spot and identified if the word we created was a silly word or a real word.

We were given new bilingual books!  

The kids cut apart the picture cards and glued them on the right page.

 We found a comfy spot and read our book with a friend!

We designed our own rocket ship!

We had fun placing star and planet stickers on our rocket ships...

 

 After we completed our rocket ship craft we danced with and twirled our rockets around as we listened to the song, "Blast Off" on our Mother Goose Time Blast Off to Space CD.  This was another favorite song of the kids for this month!

We reviewed what a constellation is with these constellation stars...

 I gave the kids a flashlight and had them shine the light through the card.  I encouraged them to count the stars they saw on the wall!

 Our books for today!

 We even had a rocket ship for snack time!!!  The cottage cheese was supposed to be the smoke!

In the afternoon I set out pattern blocks and a rocket ship and letter R pattern block card...

 I copied the same pattern block card on a piece of transparency paper.  The kids used the translucent pattern blocks to create the same picture on our light table!

 The kids also had fun making their own pictures with the pattern blocks!  This cutie has BIG news to share!  She is no longer in diapers!!!!  Yay!  Also, her parents just found out that she will be having a BABY BROTHER this summer!!!!  Congrats to the whole family!!!!!!

 I bought this AWESOME science experiment at Michael's! 

 We went outside and filled the base with baking soda and the top with vinegar.  It blasted higher than the trees!!!!  The great thing was that we were able to reuse it and do it over and over again!  What fun!

We also worked in our math workbook.  We cut and pasted rocket ships on our page by listening to the positional words in the directions...

Our literacy workbook activity...

We completed our journals!!!!

Gravity pulls us down!

On Friday I helped each child write a sentence in their literacy workbooks.  They needed to imagine what they think would happen next in the story.

 We learned about gravity on this day!  I asked the kids to try their hardest to jump and stay in the air.  I thought it was adorable that they tried so hard to do this...

I asked the kids why they think they fall back down after they jump.  They said because they are "heavy."  We took out our dancing scarves to debate that thought.  We had fun tossing up the scarves and catching them before they fell, but we could see that even light things fall to the ground.

We also experienced gravity pulling us down as we jumped and reached for shapes I posted high on the wall in the hallway.  I told the kids to try and tap and then name each shape they could touch.

What happens to a balloon when you let go of a the string?  I bought a helium filled balloon last night for this activity.  The kids LOVED watching the balloon float up to the ceiling!!!!

 We filled a second balloon up with just regular air and the kids hypothesized what they thought would happen when we let go of it.  We discussed why one balloon floated and why one baloon dropped to the floor.  We compared the balloon floating away to what it must be like in outer space without any gravity!

I laid a blanket on the floor and we pretended it was the space station.  I set out puzzles pieces (provided from Mother Goose Time) on the floor away from the blanket.  I explained that in space an astronaut could float away just like a balloon, so they needed to be tied to a rope that is connected to their ship.  We took turns tying a long string to our friends.  They pretended to float out into space and brought back one puzzle piece at a time...

 We gently pulled our friends back to safety...

 When we gathered all of our puzzle pieces, we put our puzzle together.  I put magnets on the back of our puzzle and had the kids assemble the pieces of a cookie sheet I bought at the dollar store.

The kids had so much fun with our puzzle activity that a few of them pretended to let go of the string and float off into space.  They called "HELP" to be rescued!

 Here is a chain of some of the kids pulling their friends into safety...

For our next activity Mother Goose provided the kids with a paper cube with two pictures of the Moon, two pictures of Earth, and two pictures of the Sun on it.  The kids colored their cube...

 They brought their cube out into the play area and rolled it.  They pretended to walk on the surface of the picture they rolled.  They knew they would need to walk in slow motion if they rolled the moon.  They walked normal if they rolled the Earth, and they ran really fast and pretended to be burning up if they rolled the picture of the Sun.

 "Ouch!  The sun is hot!!!!"

 Slow motion walking on the moon...

For another activity we experimented dropping objects that are light and objects that are heavy.  We could see that the heavy objects fell to the floor sooner than the light objects.

The kids followed the Dance and Beats DVD for our song for the day.  The name of the song was "Gravity Pulls Me Down!"  The kids loved the song so much they continued to sing in throughout the rest of the afternoon.

The kids also worked on the star shape in their workbooks.  They traced the foam star shapes Mother Goose provided and designed their own constellation.

 They completed the sentence, "My constellation is..."

"My constellation is a house."

I laminated a couple of the games from our math workbooks for the kids to play with today.  The goal was for the kids to get their astronaut from the start to the finish and collect the most amount of space food along the way...

These were our books for today...

I also set out a couple of more complicated puzzles for the kids...

 They were up for the challenge...

 When they completed the challenge they wanted to save their puzzle.  I said that would be okay, but that they cannot stand or walk on the puzzles.  So instead they spread their legs across the puzzle and waddled over it.  They made a game of it.  They said they could not touch the sun or they would burn up!

I also took out belts for the kids to work on their fine motor skills.  We talked about how an astronaut needs to wear a seat belt when they blast off, but they can get up and move around the space shuttle once they are comfortably in space.  We also mentioned that an astronaut needs to be buckled to their bed at night so they do not float around!  The kids imagined a sleeping astronaut bumping into things and thought this was hilarious!

Have a great weekend!