Space, or "why not Pluto"

Our Space unit started out a tad bit boring.  We read from the text book then answered the questions.

 Then I got a tad more creative and we started a lapbook style folder.

 In our lapbook we made a picture model of the solar system, a moon phase chart and and solar energy report.

We also had our plate Earth and seasons mini-book.  To teach seasons I reused one of my favorite lesson ideas.  Only this time we were stuck at McD. so no glueing.  Instead Charry had to color the rays of sunlight.

We had a plethora of outer space books to supplement out text book, unfortunately most were written before Pluto's infamous demotion.  Luckily my daughters have gotten used to my sense of humor.  When ever Pluto was referred to as "a planet" we talked about writing letters to the scientist who demoted poor Pluto.  We thought they should replace our books since it's their fault the books are wrong.  On the plus side they may not remember the names of the planets but they know the name of the dwarf planet.

Right about the time I was out of ideas I got the Magic School Bus Space DVD  I grew up with Miss Frizzle and was happy to share the magic with my kids.

  

I also got this science kit.  It was full of easy to do at home experiments.  While a bit spendy I thought it was well worth the price.

We filled a second folder with the experimental data and learned a bit about making a hypothesis. Charry had trouble because she either knew for sure why things happened or didn't know at all.  It was tough making her guess when she didn't want to be wrong.

It was a fun unit both for me, putting it together, and Charry, doing all the projects.  I'm looking forward to next year recycling some ideas, building on others and hopefully a few new things thrown in the mix.