We all learned about the planets today at Lakeside Academy as we played with the solar system. We started off with a movie- The Magic School Bus Gets Lost In Space. All the kids enjoyed Mrs. Frizzle's crazy field trip through the solar system!
At circle time we did our usual welcome song ("Hello Megan, Stretchy, Stretchy Megan, Toesy, Toesy, Toesy One Two Three"- ask the kids to sing it for you)- with 11 kids our arms get a real workout doing that song! Then we had show-and-tell and today our last hold out finally joined in, Mikenna decided to share with us today. Is was short and sweet- "I like monkeys." But it was a start! I can't wait to hear more from her, and all the kids, next time. We also read a great book about the sun today.
It answered a lot of questions the kids had about how the sun works and how it relates to the planets. They were all especially interested to learn that the Earth has gone around the sun in their lifetime only as many times as the years old they are ("How many orbits old are you?"). Then we played a game to help the kids learn the order of the 8 planets and an interesting fact about each one. Did you know that the largest volcano in the solar system is on Mars? Or that Neptune is soooooo slow that it has never completely orbited around the sun since it was discovered in the 1800's?
Next was arts and crafts- we made some cool planets today! The kids each used washable markers to color a coffee filter. Then they used eye droppers to drop water all over their design. The colors blurred together and made beautiful planets that they later glued onto a black background complete with shining stars. And they even got a bonus planet from the imprint that their coffee filter left behind on the white paper.
We also decorated some paper plate UFO's today with stickers and markers. The kids all named their little aliens and made up some fun stories about where they came from.
After lunch we went on little walk to visit our horse friend, Birthday. When we got there she was far off in the field but the kids called her and were very patient, finally she came to us. We had fun visiting her today, next time we'll take her some apples. And be a little more careful with our fingers near her mouth-
as Dane found out today.
Our human solar system was the next fun part of the day. I drew the sun and 8 circles around it on the driveway, each of the kids was assigned a planet and Miki was the sun. They all took their places and orbited slowly around the sun while we sang a song to help us remember the planets. They did such an awesome job being the planets!
Being a planet makes you hungry, so we headed inside for our cooking project. Today we made fruit rockets. Nana gave each of the kids a new cutting board and let them peel and cut their bananas themselves. This a great practice, especially for the youngest kids. They also got some apple slices and strawberries. They took all of their fruit and stuck them on a chopstick to make a rocket shape...then quickly ate it all.
For the last hour of the day the kids had a blast playing outside. We even had some UFO flying contests, those aliens were really good at navigating their ships.
It was a great day! Next week we will celebrate Thanksgiving- let the kids know that they should think about something they are thankful for to talk about at circle time.
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