There is something fascinating, captivating and intriguing about the Universe! Although Cosmos appears empty and dark, it sparkles with thousands of mysterious glittering lights. Also, while purportedly having an infinite nature, the universe keeps expanding! It holds billions of galaxies, each containing millions of stars, and although the space between stars and galaxies is largely empty, it contains particles of dust, radiation (e.g. light and heat), as well as magnetic fields and high energy particles (e.g. cosmic rays).
- Julia is holding In the Sky My First Discoveries: Torchlight (buy here). Discover a torchlight which brings empty black pages to live revealing images and messages!
- There's No Place Like Space: All About Our Solar System Cat in the Hat's Learning Library (buy here) delivers content in a fun rhyming way.
- The Visual Dictionary of the Universe Eyewitness Visual Dictionaries (buy here) is a comprehensive edition which will keep your preschooler, as well as an elementary child, totally captivated.
- [on the right] Ravensburger Outer Space Puzzle, 60 Piece, (buy here) with its bright illustration of our Solar system and astronauts entices Adrian to assemble it over and over again (Adrian first assembled it at 44 months).
- [middle] Round Kids' Puzzle of the Solar System, 50 Piece, (buy here) also features the Milky Way, galaxies, quasars, asteroids, and more. The color of each planet's elliptical orbit matches the color of the planet to enhance the educational experience.
Read here about this Solar System floor jigsaw puzzle in a "National Puzzle Day" post where Adrian assembled this puzzle for the first time.
Children also love reading National Geographic Kids First Big Book of Space (buy here). This book, with its colorful illustrations and simple text, introduces young children to the wonders of Space, explaining basic concepts of the universe, beginning with what is most familiar and expanding out into the cosmos.
This hand-crafted โจSolar System set (buy here) has been children's favorite hands-on material to go along any solar system discussion! These needle felted planets, made from wool and organic cotton, are proportionally sized to each other with names embroidered on the back. Adrian loves how ๐๐ปhands-on COSMOS study can be! He can basically hold the Solar System in his hands.
MATH
What about skip counting by 2s while learning ๐constellations! ๐ฆ๐ผAdrian first ๐จdot-painted the constellation using pop-poms with clothespins and then he had to color match the โณ๏ธgolf tee with the corresponding ๐ขnumber and ๐จhammer it to the matching dot in the sequential order skipping 2s. Thank you, Krystle, for these amazing printables (find the free pdf here)! (And while you are there, check amazing themed room ๐transformation ideas! I absolutely love Krystle's ๐blog!)
SENSORIAL ACTIVITY
No one knows the exact size of the Universe since we simply cannot see the edge (if indeed there is one). All we know is that the visible Universe is at least 93 billion light-years across. (A light year is the distance light travels in one year โ about 9 trillion km.) However, scientists believe that the Universe was not always the same size. They propose that before the birth of the Universe (the Big Bang which took place nearly 14 billion years ago) time, space and matter did not exist. However, one of the theories is that since the Big Bang, the Universe has been expanding outward at a very high speed, meaning that the area of space we now see is billions of times bigger than it was when the Universe was very young. Such would also imply that the galaxies are also moving further apart as the space between them expands.
ARTS/CRAFTS
See the round up of our ๐Cosmos ๐Space Inspired Themed Unit Study here.
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