Outer Space Camp
We did this summer camp 2 years ago in 2018. It was a blast!
You can find all of the DIY Summer Camp At Home Series here.
Day 1: I wrote a few key vocabulary words on slips of paper and my little guy helped me fill the plastic Easter eggs with the papers. I hid the eggs around the backyard to create a fun, yet simple game to launch our learning. After discussing the terms, we wrapped the eggs in foil to create “asteroids.” Then, we constructed an obstacle course to carry the “asteroids” from one side of the backyard to the other. For lunch, I made fun Fruit Rocket kabobs to go alongside my attempted PB&J rocket-shaped sandwiches… Yeah, I’ll leave the cutesy foods to the experts 😉
Day 2: The kids created a beautiful intergalactic painting on a large piece of cardboard with blacks, blues, purples and tons of glitter. I gave the kids an assortment of “brushes” which included toothbrushes, cotton balls, and fingers!
Day 3: Although the plan for the day was to craft planets on paper or coffee filters, we never got around to it. Honestly, we cancelled the day so we could go get donuts…and homeschool supplies. It wasn’t quite the original plan, but we rolled with it. Later in the day, we did read about astronauts and created kid-size versions. We laid flat a large roll of butcher paper and traced the kids. They completed them by adding a helmet, Astronaut suit, boots & lots of American flags. Lola also worked through Draw Aliens and Space Objects in 4 Easy Steps by Stephanie Lebaff.
Day 4: After looking through several space books, I pulled out the constellation chart, toothpicks, playdough and star stickers. I showed the kids how to use the toothpicks to create constellations. It wasn’t really a hit. The kids preferred drawing the constellations and galaxies on black paper with white crayons/ chalk, oil pastels, and tons of glitter glue!
They really enjoyed reading about the constellations, the names, and the locations, so I didn’t feel it was a wasted day. In the afternoon, I noticed that quite a bit of the “asteroids” from day 1 were losing their foil… Come to find out, it was used on the Barbies to make space suits and dresses!
Book List:
- Space Exploration by Carole Stott
- Mission Control, This is Apollo by Andrew Chaikin
- Draw Aliens and Space Objects in 4 Easy Steps by Stephanie LeBaff
- Life on Mars by Jon Agee
- Eight Days Gone by Linda McReynolds
- Astronauts by Sarah Tieck
- A is for Astronaut by Clayton C. Anderson
- Galaxies, Galaxies by Gail Gibbons
- Planets by Elizabeth Carney
We had such a fun adventure learning about planets, constellations and galaxies. You could easily replicate this in-depth learning in a week (or many more!!) or over the weekend. Of course, you could just focus in on one aspect of Space or zoom out even father to get the bigger picture. A visit to the local Space Museum or Science Center would also nicely round out the week! (We didn’t have time to do this over the weekend, but plan to in the next few weeks!)
