Astronomy Unit Study

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March 12, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

We added some Montessori materials for our science studies

Morning message pages introducing our astronomy unit:

The UMOCA had a FREE kids’ craft making astronomy mobiles.

Well, don’t ya know we hightailed it over there! Fun, fun fun! Free, free, FREE!

5 Little Astronauts. He named each little astronaut after our family members. So sweet!

The girls enjoyed learning about and labeling the moon phases.

Kate loved our Montessori moon cards:

Fun astronomy matching game

Comet kabobs snack

There are stars in my apples!

Mnemonic the girls wrote to remember the names of the planets. Yes, I know Pluto is not a planet anymore, but it was fun and we needed to include the word “pigs” somewhere!

So cute how they laid all out on the foyer floor to do their word searches!

Working on alphabetizing the planets in these adorable workbooks from Target’s dollar spot (a long time ago)

Found a fun popup book at a discount bin.

Elizabeth did astronomy in 1st-2nd grade with Apologia Exploring Creation With Astronomy, so this will be review for her. Tori and Katie are so excited! I even have some fun little things to include Alex.

Astronomy Unit Study

Poetry

Here are some poems that we plan to work on this month. We love poetry! I will have the moon poem on our calendar board and the gravity poem in a Montessori poetry basket. I also have some other poems in the works.

Calendar

Week 1: Intro, Sun and stars
Week 2-3: planets
Week 4: comets, asteroids, and other heavenly bodies
Week 5-6: Earth and moon

We start off our morning each day with these: Calendar Connections.

Texts

Stargazer’s Guide to the Night Sky and Apologia Astronomy

Arts and Crafts

make a solar system mobile
moon sand sensory bin
moon painting
stencils and stamps
watercolor planets

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Time lapse phases of the #moon with @Oreo! #homeschool #science @apologiaworld #oreo
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Games

Astronauts to Earth
Space Dominoes
Space Memory
Pretend play with Space Module Astronaut Dome Tent

Notebooking

copywork
word searches
mazes
fun space printables

I have some biography studies, mostly for Elizabeth. She also wants to do some mythology comparisons with constellations.

Montessori

3 part cards
Nomenclature cards
poetry

Books

Field Trips

We went to UMOCA (fun crafts!) and the Planetarium. We went star-gazing while camping on Antelope Island.

Watching a lot of Doctor Who counts too, right?

Check out my astronomy board:
Follow Jennifer’s board Astronomy on Pinterest.

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Read Across America Unit Study

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March 11, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Most educators celebrate Read Across America week.

Launched in 1998 by the National Education Association (NEA) and guided by a committee of educators, NEA’s Read Across America is the nation’s largest celebration of reading. This year-round program focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources that are about everyone, for everyone.

Many individuals and organizations have stepped away from focusing on Dr. Seuss’s birthday for Read Across America week.

We celebrate diverse authors and subjects. Many teachers and parents eschew Seuss for other, better, more diverse choices.

While my kids were little, I never knew or considered Dr. Seuss books as anything but cute rhymes.

I have an entire bookshelf full of Dr. Seuss books and I’m so upset about it.

Instead of overusing and misusing the word “cancel” why can’t we just say “criticize” and “critical”? Don’t we want to model and teach critical thinking and literary analysis?

Now that I know better, I do better.

Do you know the Truth about Seuss?

Racism and Dr. Seuss:

It is NOT “cancel culture.” It is facing consequences.

A popular homeschool blogger comments about censorship.

So many Dr. Seuss stories are iconic – memorable traditions we read and watch every year.

I think as white people, we tend to overlook subtle, covert, and even overt racism and make excuses for the writer or artist. We wave it away as “a sign of the times” or “how it was back then.”

This is laziness.

It’s important we reevaluate what we expose our kids to and if we continue to read and watch these stories, we do so critically and with more awareness and discuss these issues with our kids. We owe it to them.