Solar System Study
Space is probably one of our favorite topics to study! We’ve studied it before, but took a completely different route this time around and I love how it turned out.
We took about three weeks for our study and we moved a little quicker than I normally prefer. We actually took a week off and went on vacation right in the middle of the unit so it ended up cutting our study a little short. I usually like to take about 4-5 weeks per unit. In case you’re new around here, we take a unit thematic approach to our studies and study the same topic every day versus alternating or looping between other subjects. This way we can dive deeper on a daily basis and it really helps my mental load. Everything from our devotionals to read aloud to family movies we watch often coordinate with our theme. Our core subjects are pretty much open and go so I only think about one topic of study which is a really fun way to do it. About each month or so we alternate between a study in history or science.
Curriculum Guides
Little School of Smith: Me and My Place in Space (Homecenteredlearning10 will give you 10% off)
This is the main guide I used and one thing I absolutely loved is that it has pictures of all the activities so I just let the kids pick what hands-on projects they wanted to do which was perfect! My kids would’ve loved to do everything, but since we are nearing the end of our school year we have a few more things we really want to get to. You could really take this so many directions though. There are a lot of arts, crafts, science experiments, and book suggestions. So it’s very flexible - you could do everything in it or just pick and choose.
In addition to some of the other fun hands-on activities, they all wanted to do the planet art projects. We decided to make them into the book and record what they learned along the way. The guide has suggested books to use, but we already had a bunch of space books and I didn’t want to buy anymore so we just used what we had for our reports and it worked just as well. If you decide to do this just know between the studying and writing and art projects we spent a good amount of time on the books. Keep in mind it’s a big project! We gathered facts for the universe, the sun, the moon, and all 8 planets. We also spent time learning about Galileo, galaxies, constellations, and some of the other things like nebulas and black holes, but we decided not to report on them. We were just coming off a study of Greek mythology so we also continued to read from our Greek mythology book and it was so perfect since many of the planets and constellations are named after these myths.
For the reports we definitely took a family style approach this time around. All the art projects were simple enough that my 3 year old could do them but they were also unique enough my 9 year olds still enjoyed them. Then, each child just wrote their report based on their writing level. My girls (9) actually finished their Language Arts workbook a few weeks ago so as part as their reading, writing, typing, and grammar practice they worked on their reports. This was the first time they’ve ever done something like this so to do it for 11 topics was a lot of work for them. But, they did a really good job and I feel like years of foundational work is really starting to support them as independent learners. They found all the books they wanted to study and then typed up what they found interesting. They did dictate a few reports to me as I typed but for the most part they did almost all of their reports by themselves. It was so fun because it felt like their first real research project. They loved it!
For my Kindergartner, he gathered one fact he found interesting either from the videos we watched or from the books we read. He would tell me the fact, I wrote it down for him, and then he would copy it. And, then for my preschooler he was SO excited to join in on this unit which I just love because he hasn’t shown as much interest in the past. He’ll be 4 in May so I think we’ve turned a corner and he’ll be working much more with us in the coming year. He is working on his letter sounds and beginning to write so we did things like S for Sun, M for Moon, and E for Earth. I made the handwriting slips that he could trace and write. When I first introduce letters and sounds, we use the moveable alphabet and sandpaper letters and these are both such great tools for interested beginners. We also like this alphabet book.
For those who use this unit and do something similar for the books, we took 1 day per planet. Then what we did was combine the art projects and just did them all over 4 days spanning that 3 week time period. Since there is a lot of art I felt like it was easier to have anywhere from 2-4 projects going on a single day versus getting all the materials out multiple times a week. But, what I like to do is just set up one “station” for each project and then the kids rotate through the projects and each get a turn doing something different versus prepping and having all the materials x4 across our table.
If you’d like to see their finished books, I saved a full flip through of my kid’s reports on IG as a reel on family style learning.
We already had the older version of this curriculum on hand (before it was a spiral bound unit). I didn’t do any of the formal lessons in here. Instead I used the wall art and images, all of the mini books, and then I also used some of their cut outs in our nature tray. We also watched a handful of the science videos because I love love love TGTB science videos especially since they often have a faith perspective. We also read and loved the stories from their science book pack. My Kindergartner read Mark Lives on Mars. We didn’t plan this but we also read a story about the first Latino astronaut to visit space, Franklin Ramon Chang-Diaz, which is in their level 4 Language Arts reader.
Other Books and Materials
Since we’ve studied space before we already had lots of these books and materials on hand. Here are some of the other things we used and did…
Little Kids First Big Book of Space: The twins chose to use this book and TGTB mini books when they wrote their reports.
Mysteries of the Universe: This was my personal favorite reference book to teach and read out of. Using our easel, I like to have a book propped open by what we’ll be doing or studying for the day so there is a visual out. What this does is naturally invite the kids in without me having to say, “come do this.” This works well with any subject, but I probably do this most in history/science. This was my “go-to” visual for this unit. This books is also a great resources because it talks about the Greek/Roman gods.
Planetarium: Love the artwork in this. We’ve never read out of it, but the kids love to thumb through it.
Greek Mythology: As I mentioned we used this book to continue reading myths. The twins are also reading the Percy Jackson series. I know a lot of people trust my more conservative book views and I would just say this series is right on the borderline for us. I did did decide to go ahead and let the girls read it but it may not be the best series for every family.
Constellation Coins: I had so many questions on these. The ones we have are homemade and were given to us so I don’t have an exact link for them, but I’ve linked a similar set off Etsy.
Solar System Printables: Besides what we used from TGTB, I also have an old file of Let’s Play School Space activities (we used Space Bingo and number puzzles for this unit for my toddler). The themes available in their shop change so you may or may not be able to find related activities. We also have these free printables from The Homeschool Compass we keep out anytime we study space.
Space Puzzles: My girls and my Kindergartner worked on this 500 piece puzzle. We also have this space floor puzzle which was perfect for my toddler.
Star Wars & Lego Kits: My older son is in love with all things Star Wars right now and he had a particularly high interest in studying space right now probably because of this. He has a lot of Star Wars Lego kits he’s done. We moved his few favorites into our school room for our unit so my younger boys could play with them especially when I needed to help the girls with something. This one and this one are his favorites right now, but if you have a Star Wars loving child, I don’t think you could go wrong with any Lego kit for this unit.
Space Sensory Bins: We had two space sensory bins for this unit. We made moon sand and used this pre-assembled sensory kit we already had. We also have these astronaut toys and space sensory balls we keep in the bins.
Space Sticker by Letter Book: All of my kids LOVE these books. My Kindergartner flew through this one.
Planetarium: I love to wrap up our units with a trip to the museum so we’ll probably be visiting our local planetarium in the next couple of weeks.
Last, but not least, I’ll leave you with a few pictures including a preschool learning shelf I did for our space week last year! I realized the other day I never saved it on my blog or IG. So, if you need any shelfie inspiration - here ya go! Enjoy!
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