The Planets and The Solar System (Part I)

Hello everyone! I'm back! Sorry for my absence as my time was eaten by chores and errands for the past few days. 

We're been doing a lot of Space and Astronomy activities lately and I wanted to share with you some of our activities.  We started off by reviewing the planets in the Solar System. The cards seen on the picture were from Usborne and while we identify the planets Mavi tried creating models using his plasticine.

(You can check this link to view our past activities)

We also play a game "guess the planet". I adapted this game from the toy which he received last Christmas.  He loves this game! 

I also took out our nomenclature cards and he worked on it as well.  For the link of the file, please click here or the image below.

On a separate day, Mavi tried using playdough to create another set of model planets.

I have to say the second batch look better :)

And just like the project that we did with the Phases of the Moon, Mavi wanted to decorate his room with planets too. And instead of simply painting them on a cardboard, we made a similar approach to this one.

I cut out circles for our planets and covered them with aluminum foil. We color the planets using Sharpies. 

  

And look how they turned out! They are so colorful and looks festive!  I love how it glittered on a black background!

Next step is to plot them into the "space", but since they're still a little bit wet we'll continue the rest of the work by tomorrow.  We'll identify the inner and outer planets, add some asteroids and stars and add labels as well.

           

And there you go!  Ideas for your planets and solar system.  I will share with you how this decor turned out once we're done. 

Happy Monday to all!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

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Phases of the Moon

It's my son's midterm break and I'm happy that we could do lots of activities now that he's at home the entire week.  Aside from the Internal Organs which we had earlier this month, we will also have lessons on Space and Astronomy.

Here are the activities we've been doing so far:

A Model of the Moon Phases.  We painted the phases for this year instead of using our felt moons :) 

 

He arranged the phases using the cards that we have and  a picture that we saw in Google.

 

 

And here's the finish product.  This artwork is now in his room.  He would refer to this at night whenever he checks for the phase the of the moon.

 

Observe and Describe. I also printed out this Moon Phases Mini-Book from Scholastic (please click the image below for the link of the file).  Here Mavi gets to describe the different phases.  I love how he can use one single word to describe the moon.

Moon Phase Calendar.  Every night we're checking out the moon and record it in the calendar which I made. If you are interested I made a generic calendar which you can use.  Just click on the image below for the link.

This recording will allow Mavi to learn how it all works!

 

Below is our reference.  We check this image (from Google) if the ones we are seeing is the same as the ones recorded in the internet :)

Here's a link to all astronomy related activities that we have done so far.

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Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
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Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
Natural Homeschool's Montessori Linky

Space and Astronomy Unit

We've been watching too much alien movies (animation) that Mavi begins to show a lot of interest in planets and the solar system once again.  This month we're doing the Moon and Solar System once again. 

You can read past astronomy themed activities here.

I also made printable materials to go along with our study.  It include planets and the astronomy cards all in one file.

And you might be interested... I made cute printable for preschoolers! Oh I can't wait to use this to my little one!  It's a 40 pages file which includes the following:

(Click the image for the link)

• Beginning sound word cards
• Matching activity that consist of control cards, picture cards and labels
• Memory Game Cards
• Word cards for reading and spelling (or practice writing)
• 1– 10 Counting Cards
• Number Cards
• Patterning activities
• Sizing/Sorting Size/Ordering
• Color Matching
• Shape Matching
• Upper and lowercase letter matching

Right now, we're making a small painting project of the Moon's phases and before the week ends, we'll be doing more moon-related activities.  I'll be sharing these activities once we're done.

Thank you so much and have a nice day!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

The Solar System

We made use of our old learning materials in our Solar System activities.  These planets were printed 2011 and I totally forgot where I got it from.  In case you own the file or knows the link just leave me a comment so I can add it up. 

Here, Mavi is putting the planets in order while singing his Solar System song learned in his Montessori school.

We started using the fact book which I made.  My son loves learning the difference between the planets and always compare Jupiter (windy and stormy planet) to our place LOL.

Here’s where you can get the Space and Solar System pack which I made.  Aside from the Solar System it also includes Astronomy Cards and Fact Books.  

        

            

This coloring sheet of the Solar System was taken from The Helpful Garden (I love this blog!). Books we used:

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Planets on Strings

I love how this little project turned out, though initially I wanted to paint the planets like what we last year but my son insisted that we should use his oil pastels.  This simple planet mobile is so easy to do and would make a lovely decor in your kids room if done correctly.

First, I made circles using my compass and cut them to be used as our planets in the mobile. I made different sizes to make it more believable.

Afterwards, we color our circles on both sides.  Mavi used his oil pastels as he is fond of them.  I am not really a fan of pastels as they can get really messy with the hands, but my son loves them, probably because it produces more vivid color than crayons.

Now each of the planet will hang from the paper plate using a string.  We attached each string using a sticky tape and position them accordingly on the plate.  To add more effect, the strings should have different lengths.

Here’s our finished product :)  It turned out to be a plain simple mobile, it would have been better if we really painted the circles to make them more eye catching.  However, the little one was so happy with his work.  He was really proud of what he had accomplished.  We placed this in our hallway and he would sing his Solar System song whenever he passed by under it :)  So cute.

Don’t miss out my Space and Solar System Cards! We used them as well during our Solar System lesson, will talk about it on my next post :)

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Space and Solar System Cards (PRINTABLES)

My son had a wonderful time learning about planets in their school.  Because of his “hangover”, he still wanted to do a lot of “planet” related activities when gets home.  So I made him these nomenclature cards and fact books and sheets so we can can look into space matters more deeply.

The file includes the following:

• Solar System Nomenclature Cards
• Solar System Fact Book
• Astronomy Nomenclature Cards
• Astronomy Fact Book
• Title page for each card set (optional printing)
• Make-believe tour guide sheet for each planet.  We pretended to travel through space using our throw pillow spacecraft and used these sheets as a guide to visit each planets.

You can get the file from here.

Feedbacks and comments are greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Planets and the Solar System

Saw this book from the library and I thought my son would like it.

 

And he did!  The book got lots of interesting images of the planets and is loaded of information which are very easy for an almost 4 yr old to understand.  I also love that each planet were discussed and has trivia on each one.

                        

Later we made planets using paints.   As we paint each planet, we first refer to the book, discuss the color and try mixing the paints so we can come up with the exact color as presented in the book. And this is how they look like as we wait for them to dry up.

Once they’re cooked, I cut them up so we can glue them on a black cardstock.  They look absolutely perfect!

My son started cutting the orange paper for his Sun.

Then we glue them on the cardstock.  We talk about the order  of the planets in the solar system as we glue them.  Here it seen that he is adding glitters on our space. 

 

Then we waited again for them to dry so we can start playing with it using our Safari Space Toob.

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The Moon

Here’s the Moon unit we did for the past few days to go along with our Goodnight Moon Before FIAR. 

Read books which I borrowed a few books from the library aside from the ones we already have.

My son can now appreciate space facts, astronauts, rocket ships and planets.  Unlike the first time we had the moon unit.

    

The space toob which was a gift for him was very useful during his play pretend of space and planets.

Now on serious stuff, I discussed the the position of the moon, earth and sun in space.  

Then I talked about the moon revolving around the earth and that the earth revolves around the sun.  I demonstrated this using our felt planets and he was fascinated.  He tried doing it by himself.

Then we worked on the phases of the moon.  I was very careful telling him that there’s only one moon but it looks different from time to time.  Since this topic is a bit complicated for a 3 year old, I just compared to it making faces.  Sometimes we look sad, happy or mad but we only have one face.  And with this, he started making faces as well... just funny that he was able to get the point somehow.

Here he worked on the nomenclature cards of the phases of the moon.

 

And using felt moons, we talked about the moon getting bigger and getting smaller.

 

I made him worked through the phases by positioning the moon phases as to the ones on the book.  From here, I asked him on what side does the moon gets bigger or smaller.

 

So everytime we’re outdoors, and he would see the moon, I love that he would describe it to me as “it’s a gibbous moon” or “it’s a crescent moon”... not just “ a moon”.    As a mom, it really makes you happy that your child digest what you have taught them :)

 

Over the weekend, we made a hanging moon phases and placed it on our verandah.  I cut out the shapes of the phases and my son covered it with kitchen foil.

    

Here they are... the phases of the moon all in silver!

Then I put it all together and hanged them for us to look at each night :)  The camera though cannot do justice on how good it looked during the day, especially when the sun would shine on it... it sparkles!

 

And the silhouette looks lovely too! 

 

I hope you enjoyed reading  my post.  These days, I really don’t have the luxury of time to make an update so I just try to post as much photos to describe what we did.  Till next time!

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