Blast Off

This week we learning about outer space!  I am a serious space enthusiast, so I love this theme!  Recently I ordered a book from Amazon www.amazon.com, it is a Mailbox book called Prop Box Play, I was especially excited to see the awesome space themed prop box that was included in this book!  I have been preparing all weekend for this unit, cutting out stars and programming them with letters and numbers, creating and collecting props, and everything else that goes along with getting a unit ready.  Papa Owl was quite confused when I asked if he had any MRE's or emergency blankets I could have for my prop box!  I made a control panel for our space shuttle by folding a piece of poster board into three equal parts.  I glued on some lids and caps, but you could also use spools. I found pictures of a speedometer, clock, view of the Earth from a shuttle, and a control panel, printed them off and glued them to my poster board.  I also drew on some windows and controls.  In my space prop box I added backpacks, flashlights, water bottles, a magnifying glass, and tongs.  I am looking for things to use as space helmets, space suits, and astronaut food! This is our Dramatic Play activity for the week!  The Owlets had fun being astronauts today, flying the space shuttle, and doing space walks!  Hopefully tomorrow they will get to find some moon rocks!
I finally got my pocket chart hung up and it is getting used all this week for a literacy activity.  I wrote the words to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on sentence strips and placed them in the chart.  I made glittery star wands to use as pointers and the Owlets can use the wands to point to the words while singing the song.  Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is one of the Owlets favorite songs so you can imagine how much they enjoyed this activity.
Our letter for the week is "N".  So, we made nests our of brown lunch bags.  The Owlets glued three blue pom poms into the nest to look like little eggs.  Since we are trying to do a hand print craft for every letter, the Owlets used their thumbs to make a thumb print necklace.  
Art: I put white tempera paint into spray bottles and added water.  The Owlets sprayed the mixture onto black paper to create a solar system.  We did this activity outside because paint ends up everywhere!
Math: I cut out 20 star shapes, on 10 of them I wrote the numbers 1-10 and on the other ten I placed dots for each number.  The idea is to pick a star, count the dots, and find the matching star.  I laminated the stars for durability. 
Writing: I cut out 16 star shapes and programmed them with some of the letters we have been working on and some new letters.  The Owlets were encouraged to find the matching pairs of letters.  Again, I laminated the stars for durability!
Blocks: I found pictures of the International Space Station, the moon, and the solar system, I printed them out, laminated them, and put them in the block area with some play people.  The Owlets built space shuttles and sent their play people off to new planets, the moon, and the space station.
Fine Motor: I incorporated a Montessori activity into our fine motor center for the week.  I put out two bowls of water and some sponges.  The Owlets squeezed the water from the sponges out of one bowl of water into the other bowl.
This was a great first day of our Outer Space week!