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Celebrate Astronomy Day with Kids
- Patria Lincoln Posted On Apr 20, 2018 | STEM
Each year Astronomy Day is celebrated worldwide. The stars have fascinated humanity for literally centuries, and even to this day captures the imagination of kids of all ages. Celebrate this event with them this year and don't worry if you don't own any expensive telescopes. These DIY activities use real life discoveries to inspire your little astronomers!
Track the Phases of the Moon
Bone sticks from across Europe and Africa dating back as long ago as 35,000 BCE that tracked the moon’s phases. Use a simple number line with your kids to track the phases of the moon over the course of a month, from full moon and back again. Do it for several months and see what patterns they begin to observe.
Depict a Celestial Phenomenon
A celestial phenomenon is a astrological event that involves one or more objects. The earliest example depicted was discovered in Germany in 1999. The Nebra Sky Disc dates back to 2000 BC and it depicted a star cluster, phases of the moon and the rising sun.
Use a black paper plate, or even just black paper, and encourage your children to depict their own star formations. If they can’t stay up to observe them at night, project some indoors with this Shining Stars Projector.
Astronomy to Keep Time
The Chinese astronomers kept detailed observations beginning about 600 BC, for the primary purpose of timekeeping. Their records allowed them to predict eclipses, and include the first record of events such as supernovas and comets.
On the other side of the world, the Mayans developed their own astronomical tables for predicting the phases of the moon, eclipses, and the appearance of the other planets. They used these and the cycles of the Sun, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and constellations to establish the Mayan calendar.
All of the above astronomy was without a telescope, and you can still observe these astronomical events with your kids today. Check out this astronomy calendar and pick a full moon, eclipse, planetary event, or meteor shower to observe as a family.
Try this simple astronomy experiment to help kids as young as preschoolers understand what makes night.
Just because ancient astronomers did all of this without a telescope doesn't mean your little ones have to! All of the above activities can be done with the naked eye but if you feel like shooting for the stars check out Learning Resources Big View Telescope. How will you celebrate Astronomy Day?
DIY Space Sensory Bin!
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Beaker Creatures DIY Halloween Slime!
October marks the beginning of our favorite time of year! We pull out all of our Halloween decorations and transform our entire house for a month before we transition to Fall and finally holiday décor. Along with the festive setting in our home, I also begin themed activities to excite our girls and encourage them to get into the holiday spirit. One of their favorite Halloween projects is creating various types of spook-tacular slime! This is an incredibly low prep activity that results in hours of fun sensory play.
The three base ingredients are water, glue, and liquid starch.
Liquid starch can be found in the laundry section of your local store and only costs a couple of dollars. As for the glue, you can use either white or clear glue. White will result in opaque slime, while the clear will be more see through. In addition to the base ingredients, choose any food coloring, glitter or add ins that match the theme! My girls chose orange and purple food coloring, various glitter, googly eyes and our beloved Beaker Creatures.
First, empty two, 5 ounce bottles of glue into a bowl. Once they are empty, fill the bottles with water and pour that into the bowl as well. Stir the mixture until it is smooth.
At this point, add in your food coloring. This is the only step you can do this at, so make sure you add enough! As you will see below, our first batch looked very orange initially, but I should have added more food coloring. By the end, it was a faint orange color (but the girls didn’t care).
Pour in any mix-ins – my oldest chose googly eyes and green + purple glitter. Stir until the items are mostly incorporated.
Next, add in 8 ounces of liquid starch and begin to stir. The mixture will begin to turn into a hard blob
.
At this point you can help your child and begin to knead the slime with your hands. If it’s pretty sticky, add in a little more starch. Knead some more and continue adding starch until the slime can be handled easily. It will still have some stick to it, but you should be able to pull it off the table in one piece. Depending on the brand of glue you use, the amount of starch will vary. I’ve found that 8 ounces is always the best amount to start with.
We added in our Beaker Creatures and the fun began! My youngest daughter also created a batch of purple slime from white glue. That batch made it’s way into the party as well.
My daughters will play with slime for hours! We store our slime for a few days of play in a Ziploc bag. If it’s a little sticky, just add some liquid starch again. We hope you enjoy this spook-tacular sensory activity as much as we do!
Save it for later!
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