Mercury...

We started our morning playing with black play-dough.  We imagined the black was the space and the marbles and bouncy balls were planets.  We used skewer sticks to make orbit lines in our play-dough...

 We quickly learned that the marbles could also be used to make craters!

 L imagined his was a birthday cake...

When we completed calendar for circle time I asked the kids to find the number 7 on the calendar (the number we are learning about this month).  I asked them to figure out how many days past the number 7 we are today.

Today we learned about Mercury!

We pretended to walk on burning hot ground, and then freezing cold ground as we sang...

"Hot, hot, Mercury.

Hot, hot Mercury.

Hot, hot Mercury, Now it's getting cold, Brrr!

Cold, cold Mercury...Now it's getting hot, Ouch!"

 (Sung to the tune of "Skip To My Lou.")

I asked the kids to tell me when they feel the temperature change.  I explained that the temperature changes a lot when the seasons change.  We discussed the upcoming season change from winter to spring and what that means for us.  I explained that the temperatures on Mercury range from 875 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime to -300 degrees Fahrenheit at night.  I set out two tubs of water - one warm, and one ice cold.  The kids explored the different temperatures with their hands...

I mixed red and blue paint with glitter and powdered laundry detergent to create a gritty texture. The kids painted two circles.  The red circle represented hot Mercury, and the blue circle represented cold Mercury.  When our paint dries we will attach our circles back-to-back with a craft stick in the middle.

 When we were done painting we decided to mix our red and blue paint to see what color it made.  Red and blue make purple!  We also watched this happen in our science discovery bottle.  We wanted to lighten our purple a bit so we added white paint...

 We painted with the leftover paint on plain white paper...

I explained that Mercury's surface is very bumpy or wrinkly.  We searched for items in the classroom that are bumpy or wrinkly.  This snap board is bumpy...

 This dinosaur is wrinkly...

 A crumpled up piece of paper is wrinkly...

 Next I asked the kids to think what it would be like to walk on Mercury.  We set out pillows and covered up our pillows with a blue sheet.  The floor looked like Mercury's rocky and wrinkly surface!

 I taped our new Spanish words on the ceiling...

 We kept the rocket down on Mercury's surface...

 We imagined we were on Mercury as we looked up into outer space and we practiced saying our Spanish words...

Mercury is one of two planets that have no moons.  Mother Goose gave us a great visual of each planet and how many moons they have. 

 I encouraged the kids to build rocky planets and moons with them in our block center...

 We took turns spinning our moon number spinner to see how many moons (blocks) we should add or subtract from our piles.

 I love this!  These kids pretended to stake flags on their planet!

 Block play is so imaginative and so much fun!

We worked on our letter R page in our journal...

 Mother Goose recommended the Mercury book on the left.  I rented this from the library, but I am so glad I had a back-up.  The one on the right was so much for suitable for the preschool age group...

I also worked one-on-one with the kids this morning as they arrived.  They completed a dot-to-dot number activity in their math workbooks...

 ...and a space story in their literacy workbooks...

 Our food program is trying to get us to serve more fruits and vegetables during snack time.  They gave us this idea on a recipe card.  I thought I would try it and name it "Alien Dip!"

It was a vibrant green color!

 Unfortunately they all gave it a thumbs down.  I don't blame them though.  It really wasn't my favorite either.  I would have been better off making guacamole.

In the afternoon we worked on a letter recognition activity with the hands-on letter R and S.  I reminded the kids that Mercury is the closest to the sun.  I asked them to follow directions with the hands-on letters.  I used positional words in my directions.
For example:
"Place the uppercase S beside the sun."
"Place the lowercase R under the sun."
"Place the uppercase S above the sun."

 Before heading outside again (Yay!) we painted and glued our UFO activity for Wednesday.  I wanted these to be dry for us to play with tomorrow.

 I didn't have the color grey paint, so I asked the kids to tell me how to make some.  They are pretty smart, so they knew quickly to tell me to mix black paint with white paint.  We thought the grey paint made the UFO's look like they were made of metal.

 We glued jewels on our UFO's for lights!