More Space Adventures in the YC - Teacher Lisa

We spent another week in outer space and boy did our little astronauts have fun! They demolished towers with asteroids, created astro-blast paintings, made aliens and even got to play in a space ship!

On Tuesday they explored pendulums as they built towers out of soft blocks and then swung asteroids through space to knock them over. We left this out on Thursday for more open-ended fun.

Our other activity on Tuesday was building aliens using cones, styrofoam balls and a variety of other embellishments. Be sure and take a peek at the cosmic creations out in our hallway display case!

On Thursday children got to stand on a chair and drop a rock filled, paint covered sock into a box, leaving big, bright splotches of color on the paper inside. These astro-blast paintings are on display in the classroom for you to come and see!

They also used crayons and candle warmers to decorate stars. The melting wax makes the crayons slide across the paper with silky smoothness - a great sensory activity and a fun way to work on fine motor strength!

Thanks to the generosity of one of our older class families, we had a cardboard rocket ship to play in on Thursday. It was a hit! Even though our space theme is over, we'll keep it around for a few days so that everyone can have a chance to check it out.

There was a do-it-yourself lunar module activity at the building table.

The control panel up in the loft was a fun way to pretend to be inside a space ship preparing for takeoff.

The windmills and space toys were in the texture table for one more week.

At the light table children could make all kinds of shapes and patterns with a set of ball-and-rod magnets.

There was unlimited glitter glue available at the creation station. Need I say more?

The tub was filled with "alien soup" and the kids had fun with the random collection of toys in the water.

There is never a shortage of cupcakes and other sweet treats in production at the play dough table.

Here are some of the other ways children chose to spend their free time:

During our story time we sang our "Zoom, Zoom, Zoom" song, learned a new song about bumping up and down in our little space shuttle, rocked out with some awesome percussion instruments, and practiced our yoga breaths.

We played a number game that involved guessing which rocket ship had a star hiding behind it by identifying the number on the front. The kids did such a good job waiting for their names to be called!

We read stories about going into outer space.

We had fun playing outside.

We are excited to start a new unit about communities on Tuesday and will kick things off with a Small Friends Pizzeria!

Until then...
Lisa and Sheri