Summer Celebration Days, Week One: Outer Space

So this summer, I decided to invite kids 3-8 to join me for some fun mornings (once a week from 9-noon) learning about a different theme each week.  I charge a small fee to cover supplies, but mostly this has turned into a fun outlet for my preschool teacher energy!:)  

We started the day building rockets with blocks while we waited for everyone to get to our house.

Then we learned a Solar System song that I learned back in like 2nd grade that goes like this: "Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Mars; these are the planets that dwell near our stars.  Jupiter, Saturn, & Uranus too. Neptune and Pluto, I know them, do you?!"  We did talk about the fact that Pluto is a dwarf planet, but still included that in our song anyways...:)

We got onto the IPad and showed them each planet on an app I have and played around with it showing how some planets spin faster than others, showed the distance from the sun, different shapes and sizes, etc.  then I pulled up a song that each planet sang a verse about themselves...

We then cut out a picture of each planet, drew a sun on a paper, and then glued our planets in order from the Sun out to Pluto.  I helped the younger ones cut theirs out.  (not pictured, sorry...)

Then we went in the back yard and experimented with alka-seltzer, vinegar, water, and baking soda to make our own rocket ship out of an old 35mm film canister (once again, my hands were a bit too full and occupied to take a picture).

Back inside for snack time!  They each got a piece of the Rocket Cake.  Love my silicone cupcake forms!:)

When they were finished eating they built more rockets, this time out of foam magnetic blocks that I have...

I found these fun wooden cutout rockets that we painted!  Such fun kiddos!:)

After we cleaned up the paint, we blew up balloons to represent each planet.  Venus got popped early on.:(  We talked about each one as we blew them up and wrote the name on them.

Then the Sun stood in the middle while the rest of the 'planets' orbited around him!

For the final activity, I made this tanagram page and my sweet husband helped me cut out shapes last night til the wee hours so that they could build a rocket out of different colors of construction paper...  They put it together like a puzzle and then glued it on...

Overall, I am VERY pleased with how well this day went.  I was a little nervous at first, but I think they learned a lot and had fun doing it!  Next week: Dinosaurs!!!:)