How Do We Get To Space?

The kids were all so excited to FINALLY  be back together today!  They had a lot to share with their friends about things that they had done while they were on Spring Break.  We introduced a new month, a new pattern for the calendar, and changed Froggy's clothing....because it FINALLY got warm outside!  When we told the kids that there weren't too many days of school left before summer, they got really happy about having their days free again.....but.....we have so much learning to do before then.....we promised to make every minute count!!!

Ms. Michelle was here today....and the kids had to share all their trip details with her too!  She had some motor planning activities for the kids to do.  They had to pick up a different colored peg from a box, walk the floor ladder in whatever way Ms. Michelle described (backwards, forwards, side ways) without touching the rungs, crawl through a tunnel, put the peg in the peg board, go under the table, and get back in line!  They LOVED it!  The last way to walk the ladder was called "hurt puppy" and it's definitely the most difficult.  You have to keep both hands on the ground and hop with one leg.  It took some help for the first few steps.....but then they had it!

After we finished that, we passed a weighted ball (5 pounds!) around a circle and named things within a given category.  We did transportation first, and then named animals.  The kids liked passing the ball and showing off their muscles!

Outside play was beautiful!  The weather was sunny and nice and the kids all immediately flocked to the sandbox!  They were baking and building and digging......and dreaming of days at the beach....oh wait.....maybe that was just me!

Our book today was Zoom Rocket, Zoom by Margaret Mayo.  This book describes some of the tools and machines that help us get to space, and help the astronauts do their work while they are there.  We talked about some new vocabulary words, like gravity and solar system.  The kids all thought it would be really cool to have to wear a seat belt to eat and sleep so you wouldn't float away.  We named some planets and talked about Earth, the planet we live on, is the only planet with water.  The kids were so interested and asked a lot of really good questions!

For art, we made our very own rocket ships. We used pictures of the kiddos to glue on the rockets so that they could all be astronauts.  The projects turned out really cute and all the kids have different ideas about where their rocket was headed!

It might seem like some of the space concepts are really difficult for kids this age....but they were fascinated today by the videos we watched about real space, space shuttles taking off,  and astronauts walking on the moon.  I think we may even have a few kiddos who have decided to go to "astronaut school" so they can be real astronauts when they grow up!