In Preschool 1 at RisingOaks Early Learning | John Sweeney, we celebrated International Human in Space Flight Day by organizing various activities for the children. We provided the children with an astronaut's perspective on how they explore the moon rocks using magnifying glasses, gloves, and hammers. While observing the children, we heard some interesting conversations. Alexander was struggling to smash the rocks while saying, "I can't smash them, they're hard." On the other hand, Fox appeared to enjoy smashing the rocks and added, "Look, I smashed one with my muscles!" Ava wasn't too keen on smashing the rocks, but she enjoyed looking at them up close with the magnifying glasses and pointed at one saying, "These are hard rocks." Jason enjoyed smashing the rocks so much that he didn't want to leave the activity and returned multiple times throughout the morning.
During this day of exploration, the children had the opportunity to watched videos of astronauts sharing what it's like to be in space. We learned many interesting things such as how to brush our teeth in space, how water turns into bubbles that float in the spaceship, how to take a shower, and how they use the toilet. We also learned how astronauts sleep and that they always have to keep their hair tied or it will go wild. Furthermore, we engaged the children in a sensory activity that involved black sand, pom poms, and mini blocks with their faces on them. This activity allowed the children to imagine themselves and their peers' as astronauts in space.
Later in the day, the children made their own moon from pool noodles and folded paper. They drew and colored an astronaut, which represented being in space and landing on the moon.
With Vivian's help, we made our own rockets. Simone laid out all the pieces, and we slowly constructed our rockets. Simone took over the last part that required hot gluing. While she was gluing the outside, we listened to a story brought in by Anika about the different planets in our solar system.
During our afternoon snack, we played a game where we pretended that our snack items represented items from outer space. For example, cookies symbolized the moon, cheese represented the sun and stars and the meat represented the planets. Throughout snack, we asked the children reflective questions to help recap the information we learned throughout the morning. Some of the questions included were, “which planet has 14 moons?”, “Which is the third planet from the sun?” and “How do people train to be an astronaut?” The children stayed in character and asked for the snack items in their new forms. We had a lot of fun going over all the new things we had learned.
