We decided our next unit study this year would be about our Solar System. Here’s a highlight of some of our favorite parts about this unit and how homeschool is going three months in!
Adventures ( AKA Field Trips!)
The Planetarium
We visited the Planetarium two times during this Solar System Unit. Between the books we read and these visits alone, the kids learned so so so much. One of the planetarium shows was The Magic Treehouse Space Mission, which was absolutely perfect because it was based on the Magic Tree House books, with the characters Jack and Annie being the stars of the show.
The Planetarium not only had the show for us to watch, but some other hands on activities.
The Challenger Learning Center
This was an event that all four of us went to at The Challenger Learning Center. It’s a place where the offer different types of interactive space activities for kids.
We went to their Apollo 13 mission challenge. First we were given a little history lesson about the Apollo 13 mission and their need to craft an air filter out of materials aboard the spacecraft. To sum it up if you are unfamiliar, in order to have enough air when things went downhill on this mission they needed to make air filters with the materials they had on hand. The people back on earth designed it using the materials they knew the astronauts had and then the astronauts had to follow their instructions and build it.
Our family was split into two teams and we had to do just this. We were given the materials to make an air filter.
One team stayed in the mission control room and created it and the other went in the rocket off to space and had to follow instructions in the space shuttle to recreate what the first team came up with.
In the end we came back together to see how closely our two filters looked. Then we got to do everything again but traded sides, so both kids got to experience both things.
The whole experience was so fun.
The center also had other cool things to look at like model space suits and space rovers.
Books about Space
Just reading books about space alone, taught us pretty much everything we could have needed to know during this unit. There are SO MANY children’s books about Space. My kids love books and reading but they aren’t big nonfiction book fans…but they eat up fiction books with nonfiction information (books like Magic School Bus series and the Magic Tree House Series. I’m listing a few of these types of fiction/nonfiction books below that were our absolute favorite for this unit study. I’ve linked them to Amazon, but we were able to get them all through our local libraries, so I’d definitely check there first. This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!
We listened to this one on Audible, which I recommend doing. It’s read by the author herself which makes it much more interesting then I ever could!
This books was written by a former astronaut!
Activities about Space
The Good and The Beautiful Space Science Unit
I purchased this Space Science Unit from The Good and the Beautiful.
Our favorite activity from this unit was the toilet paper one. The point was to show us how large our galaxy is and how far apart the planets really are. They had us roll out a roll of toilet paper to show the distance between each planet relative to each other. We marked each planet with a rock that the kids decorated.
Movies and Television Shows
We watched these two…
The Cat in the Has Knows a lot about Space
Create your own Planet!
The kids were each tasked with creating a planet. They had to name it, draw what it looked like and tell a little about some of its attributes, how many moons, distance from sun, temperature, etc. Then they got to make it out of candy.
Just for fun….
The gift shop at the Planetarium is pretty sweet. We picked up some of these fun things to try during this unit…
Homeschool is still going well. We are continuing our curriculum for math and language arts. Anika is using a mix of Rightstart Math ( I plan to talk more in detail about this in the future once we have used it longer) and also using Multiplication Facts That Stick, by Kate Snow, which has been game changing for her. 100 percent recommend for anyone homeschooling or not whose child is learning their multiplication facts. For language arts we are using The Good and The Beautiful. Jacob is using Eureka math and Fundations.
But we really love the time when we do our unit studies. The freedom to explore the topics the kids love like this and how it allows me to get creative and plan activities and find adventures and for us to go on to bring what they are learning to life has been so fun for me. I’m also learning so much along with them. I don’t pay much attention to the news, but at our first trip to the planetarium we learned the plan to have people live on Mars by 2045 and all three of our minds were blown. Jake asked the man leading the presentation, “how are they going to get the materials to build houses up there?!!”. Also all three of us have a new found appreciation for the sun. We spent some time focusing on it specifically this unit and wow. It’s truly incredible and life giving. I’m sure I learned this at one point in my education and over time just forgot, but wow do I have gratitude for it now. Wow.
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