We started the week with a fascinating carpet time, where the children told me everything they already knew about space, including the name of our plant, Earth, and that things float in space because there is no gravity, so we must wear a space suit to stop us from floating away!

Using a model of the solar system and some interesting pictures on the C-touch, we then enjoyed learning about the eight planets in our solar system and learned that Mars is the closest planet to us, it is red and would take two years to get there. We learned that Jupiter is the biggest planet and that Mercury is the planet closest to the sun. The children were very intrigued to learn that the sun is not a planet, but a twinkling star! The children already knew that the sun is very hot because it is on fire, but we learned together that the sun does not move like the planets do. We all had a go at standing up and spinning around like the planets in their orbit. After looking at the pictures, one child recognised an asteroid and we learned that asteroids are huge pieces of rock that travel in space and that it was one of these that killed all of the dinosaurs 60 million years ago!

Later on, we explored space travel ourselves as we climbed aboard our rockets and blasted off into space. The children were fantastic at space walking around the moon and were interested to learn about real people who had been. We watched a video of the first moon landing and noticed it was all bumpy where the asteroids had hit, so we conducted our own experiment to make different sized craters on the moon. The children each chose their own rock and experimented dropping it onto the moon from different heights. We learned that the craters were the biggest when our asteroids fell from a greater height.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knowing that things float in Space, we experimented with different materials to see if they would float or sink in water. My first object was bubble wrap and the children predicted what they thought was going to happen and why. The children then each chose an object, made a prediction and carried out their experiment. We were surprised that most of the big objects that we chose floated on top of the water and the smaller objects sank. We were curious about this, but after feeling the objects, realized that the smaller objects were heavier and didn’t have any air bubbles inside.

During their play, the children have been very busy creating their own playdough aliens, painting sparkly space pictures and role-playing with the alien characters in the moondust messy play. Mrs Nelson read us a fantastic story too this week, about a young bear who built his own rocket out of a cardboard box and flew himself into space. The children were inspired by the young bear and decided to make their own rocket ships using the junk-modelling. The children thought really carefully about the different features they wanted to include on their rocket ship and explored lots of different materials, shapes and sizes to find the perfect pieces for their designs.

 

We had lots of fun in our maths focus this week as we continued our journey through space playing Rockets and Aliens. The children took it in turns to roll the dice, recognise the number and move their counter the correct number of spaces along the board, climbing up the speedy rockets and being careful not to slide down the slippery aliens. The children were excellent at their careful counting and some children even tried using two dice and adding their numbers together!

We have also been very busy getting our Mother’s Day celebrations ready this week. The children worked very hard to write their cards using their neatest writing and everyone has painted a fantastic portrait of their mummy, decorating the frame with lots of our favourite things. They also each did a great job of choosing a special gift for their mummy at the Mother’s Day stall. I loved how carefully the children thought about the colours and materials they chose, thinking about the things they knew their mummies would love.