I’m Gina, mama of 3 boys ages 9, 6 and 4… trying to keep life happy and fun during these difficult times of the Coronavirus Pandemic…
These times are heavy, and I find I need something to look forward to each day when teaching my boys. I find a “theme” to be just what I need. Just a few extra hours of prep allows all of us to share a common bond and experience together…
I decided to make a Space Camp our theme week last week during Spring Break. I found some of the teacher books I had, and made our dining room into a school…
Space Camp
Here’s a video of all the fun things the boys learned about during the week…
Setting the stage…
I found some of my teacher books about space and some shirts the boys had been given to set the stage and get the boys both excited and curious.
I printed out some images of planets and used my Cricut to cut out letters for NASA Space Camp…
Moon
We kicked off the week learning about the moon phases through Oreo Cookies.
We watched some YouTubes on the Moon as well…
We also used the challenge by NASA to create a Moon Habitat! These ultimate fort builders worked awesome!
Planets
The boys learned about planet attributes through this chart and through books.
I had the boys help to fill in the information…
Here are some great YouTube videos on planets:
The Planets by Gail Gibbons
Exploring our Solar System
Story Bots
Planets Preschool
Planets song
We also created our own solar system with sidewalk chalk…
ISS
I taught the kids about the ISS (International Space Station).
We tested out NASA’s space capsule experiment.
We made our playhouse into our own version of the ESS (Eason Space Station).
We watched of YouTubes about the ISS…
Everything about living in space
Rockets
For the grand finale of the week, we tried to test out some rocket experiments. I had a limited amount of ingredients to work with… but we did our best…
We made a balloon rocket.
and also tried out a pop bottle rocket…
We also watched a couple rocket launches from YouTube.
Crafting
It was a great week together…we created many memories…
I used my Cricut to create the bulletin board letters, as we as letters of “planet” “moon” and “rockets” so the kids could play around the the letters to spell various words. We also decorated the rocket with permanent vinyl.
I always love the crafty element of a great theme!
Happy Homeschool!
