Unit Study: Space

Welcome to our Unit Study topic: SPACE. Hey, this is a HUGE topic and the possibilities for what you could study are right up there with the number of stars! Buckle your seat belt because we're going to rocket some ideas your way – hang on and have fun!

Each month I'm going to give our readers a few tips which I teach in my book Everything You Need to Know About Homeschool Unit Studies, and are also part of the instruction I present in my workshops. These tips are the "things" I have found to help streamline all aspects of conducting unit studies and make them easy and successful.

Here comes a UNIT STUDY PLANNING IDEA from The Unit Study Queen – me!

What comes to mind when you think of Space? Whenever I teach a topic to my kids for the first time, you might say I'm "green" – which means it's a topic I know very little about. In order to figure out how to approach the topic, the first thing I do is see if I can find (or have on my shelf) some sort of teacher's planning guide which will include ideas for resources, spelling words, reproducibles, activities, etc. This guide will help me gain some direction over how I'm going to proceed. Together with this guide and a stack of books on my topic, I can make general (not specific) plans for our study. The main thing I wanted to TEACH you this month, is to look over your non-fiction books (the kind you get from the library) and I want you to notice that each "two page spread" usually covers one aspect of your study.

For example, a book about the Middle Ages covers: Castles built for defense, People in the castle, People in the Village (peasants), The Feudal Ladder (social positions), How lords and ladies live, How peasants live, Merchants and Trade, The Power of the Church, and so on. Once I begin to see what is presented in a study, I am able to sort of divide my study in similar sections and perhaps even study one category for a few days at a time. I will then put post-it-notes in places that read, "monks/ church" or "castles" or "knights." Then when I am reading to my kids, I can find interesting things in many books on one area of my study. It helps me stay on track and present the information I wanted to cover. All this planning would only take me a few hours. So if you want to see what Space presents, be sure to look over a few non-fiction books and see what "flies" out at you!

In the meantime, here are some ideas to get you started! This is an especially fun unit to do with young children and take advantage of their natural fascination with outer space and space travel. They love to pretend to fly a spaceship and visit a distant planet. However, this is an excellent topic for all ages – even high school. I always say "It's all about the books!" So just use age appropriate books and accomplish study skills at whatever level you find your child.

The study of the universe is one of the oldest sciences in the world. People have been wondering about what lies beyond the skies for thousands of years. Both the Greeks and the Romans believed the earth was the center of the universe. We have discovered over the centuries that this is not true and have begun to understand so much more about outer space in the last hundred years…and have even seen man walk on the moon!

Areas to Study:

• Astronomy - the study of the universe (Planetariums, Telescopes)
• Sun, moon, stars, planets, asteroids, comets, galaxies. Our Solar System.
• Space Exploration and Travel / types of equipment, rockets, launchers, probes, satellites, shuttles.
• Space Expeditions – names of missions
• Astronauts
• Equipment
• Space
• Lightyears
• Black Holes
• Gravity

People:
From Ancient times to current: Copernicus, Galileo, Archimedes, Eratoshenes, Aristarchus, Ptolemy…Sir Isaac Newton, the Earl of Rosse (first telescope), Edmond Hailey, Yuri Gagrain (from Russia), Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong.

Bible:
Read about the Big Bang Theory and then write out how the Bible says it all happened. Write out scriptures about the sun, moon, stars – great for handwriting practice

Activities:

• Making a wall timeline of space is a great visual activity the whole family can take part in. Draw your own pictures, or scan photos and include some of the people listed above as well as key events in the space race.
• Conduct a light and ball experiment to demonstrate rotations, day and night, and seasons
• Make 3D model of the solar system using Styrofoam balls, wire, and paint
• Act out the planets' and the moon's around the earth
• Try making a space flapbook (this is the same thing as a lapbook)See: http://www.squidoo.com/spacelapbook

Writing

• Choose one planet to report on. Include pictures.
• List each planet, their characteristics, color, etc.
• Study the calendar to see where the sun is at each month's juncture
• Make up a Planet fact sheet and fill out for each planet
  

Geography

• Make a map showing different time zones and daylight savings time
• Learn about the constellations. Using black paper and white chalk, draw pictures of different constellations

Research
Research the magnitude / brightness of different stars

Resources

• Space by Will Osborne
• Orbit by John J. Nance
• First on the Moon: What it Was Like When Man Landed on the Moon by Barbara Hehner
• The Apollo Moonwalker by Stuart A. Kallen
• The First Moon Landing by Stever Kortenkamp
• You wouldn't want to be on Apollo 13! : a mission you'd rather not go on by Ian Graham
• The Race for Space: the United States and the Soviet Union Compete for the New Frontier by Betsy Kuhn
• The Big Book of Air & Space Flight Activities by Jani Macari Pallis
• If You decide to go to the Moon by Faith McNulty
• The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System by Joanna Cole
• Inside Outside SPACE by David Shayler
• I Wonder Why…Stars Twinkle by Carole Stott
• Stargazers by Gail Gibbons
• Breakthroughs in Science – Astronomy by Carol J. Amato

Websites
http://www.nasa.gov/
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/how-to-draw-planes2.htm
http://www.space.com/
http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1084.html
http://www.fi.edu/fellows/fellow9/dec98/lesson.htm (click on Cosmic Lesson Index at the bottom of the page for more options)
http://www.spacegrant.hawaii.edu/class_acts/index.html

GREAT Ideas from Our Readers

Here are a few ideas from Lisa in Washington:

Greetings Earthlings! I hope this note finds you well! RyLee and I have been using Apologias Astronomy this year. Some other books we also used:

• Discover kids magazine: Space, Planets, Space Exploration, Astronauts, Moon
• Comets, Meteoroids and Asteroids by Semour Simon
• Our Solar System by Semour Simon (watch for Big Bang theory on the first page…otherwise a great book!)
• An educational read and color book of Planets ISBN #0865451125
• Voyages to the Stars by Richard Bliss
• Voyage to the Planets
• Find the Constellation by H. A. Rey
• Free Online Resource: http://homeschoolcentral.com/study/astronomy.html

Misty has this to share: "Last year, my kids were so into 'Space"'. Our children's librarian taught us a great poem which has helped me to finally know all the planets in order.

Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars,
Then comes Jupiter, oh, my stars,
Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, too,
Then comes Pluto, zippity zoo.

We've done so much in our study it's hard to remember it all, but one thing we won't forget is that poem! It's amazing to see my 5 year old pick out the planets on the rug at the library, faster than I ever have!

Becky's idea: "I bought a book on moon journals which has you sketch the moon (or paint...different media each day) each night...then add poetry, stories, and facts to the journal. You could take a sketch book, make it into journal and make a cool cover...ooooh this makes me want to start!"

Lorraine wanted to make sure we knew about the NASA link. Thanks Lorraine!
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/index.html

Bunny contributed these ideas she has been using with her ten year old son for the last month during their study on Space and loving it. "I used Dinah Zike's "The World of Space" which has a lot of cool hands on experiments and my son has loved every one we have done."

"We also made a moon book which I drew large circles in. Every night we go out to look at the moon. He date stamps the date and then draws the lines and colors in yellow and black to show how the moon looks. He then writes under it what phase the moon is in, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, or waning crescent. He enjoys going outside to look at the moon."

"For handwriting practice and copywork,I had my son copy Moon poems. He thought that was fun."

Lunar Eclipse site: http://www.mreclipse.com/Special/LEprimer.html

Here are some other space websites: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/lc_welcome_astronomy.html
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/the_book/index.html

Books we are using:

Eyes on Adventure Exploring Space written by Leigh Hope Wood
Solar System by Melvin and Gilda Berger
The Moon by Seymour Simon

Melanie from Notebook Learning has a great contribution to our Space study...a set of notebooking pages for each major and dwarf planet you can access at this site:
http://www.notebooklearning.com/search/label/Astronomy