4 Lessons About Space!

It's Launch Day here at Kennedy Space Center!

Update 9/15/2021

The First All Civilian Mission to Space is on the launch pad - SpaceX Inspiration 4. Read more about it from this article on NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/15/1037015900/the-1st-all-civilian-crew-is-about-to-orbit-the-earth

(Previous launch)

  The NASA SpaceX Commercial Resupply Mission-22 took off! Watch the launch video from NASA here: https://youtu.be/deKkd6EKolo

Launching Lessons!

It's about time that I share some of these lessons. Here are 4 easy lessons to teach kids about space. 3 of them are lessons that I made, and the 4th is from NASA. (image of a SpaceX launch from the NASA image gallery, with the words "Launching Lessons")

Lesson #1: Time and Space

We love counting down to launch! 

Check out this lesson from my series called "Young Kids' Math".

Here we explore space and time! 

We practice counting down from 10, counting up to 20, and back down again. Then we talk about the sequence of activities that fill our days and nights, and we look at our clock to see what time things happen. Along the way we read two books: On the Launch Pad by Michael Dahl and Good Night Astronauts by Adam Gamble and Mark Jasper.

Here's the link to the video lesson:

https://youtu.be/WqtMDcnkZD8

Lesson #2: Matching and Reading 3 Part Cards

Here's a photo of our table that we set up with our lesson about the launch (from 7/30/20).

 

For this lesson, we matched a picture with a word on it with a picture alone, and the word. They're called 3 part cards. Each of our words is written with the consonents in blue and the vowels in red, so we can see patterns in the words easier. This simple homemade matching game encourages kids to develop an eye for words, even if they can't yet read themselves. Then we played memory with the bigger cards from the set.

You can encourage literacy by making your own 3 part cards - on any topic! 

Here's how you do it:

Card 1 (big): just a picture 

Card 2 (big): picture + word 

Card 3 (small): just the word 

Our cards have Mars, Perseverance, and the little helicopter named Ingenuity. 

Lesson #3: Distance

I also made a math storytime lesson to talk about the distances involved in traveling to Mars. 

In this episode we practice counting to 10, talk about big, medium, and small. With the help of an abacus we look at some big numbers, specifically the distances from Earth to the International Space Station, Earth to the Moon, Earth to Mars, and Earth to the Sun. We also read the books entitled Guess How Much I love You and Daddy Hugs 1,2,3.

You can check it out on my YouTube channel, here's a link:

https://youtu.be/dJCcs6XcRMw

Lesson #4: Launch with NASA!

NASA has so much to explore. 

Here's a simple lesson called "Launch It!" Where you make balloon rockets with kids. 

Other Resources:

What research is going up to the ISS today? Among lots of other things, Chile pepper seeds are on their way to the International Space Station. Link to my blog about it here.

Do you want to learn more about what's going on with the Mars Perseverance Rover and Ingenuity today?  Check out the latest on the Mars 2020 Rover on NASA's website.

Do you want to spot the ISS the next time it passes over your town? Check it out at Spot the Station!