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!