Space Week

This is the second time we’ve done Space Week, and it’s still one of my all-time favorites. We reused items we normally have stashed away in closets downstairs, like the cardboard spaceship (which we made last year) and the TARDIS (which was a lucky Facebook Marketplace find) and added a star tapestry and lots of Christmas lights.

Other things I included: For large motor skills, I used “moon rocks” to balance on, and also taped laminated dye-cut spaceships to the floor so they could jump from one to the other. For light play, we re-purposed some Christmas lights as twinkle lights on the wall for stars and also bought this fun projector. We had a space themed sensory table (see below), and a Velcro board with planets (a Target find that I added velcro to). We added a black light to our light table and glow in the dark stars – which charged quickly in the black light. For small motor skills, we used magnetic blocks to build ships. For dramatic play, we had astronaut costumes (the orange suit and backpacks are from Target), tools to fix our ship, and kid versions of technology to communicate.

(From my Theme Week post, here are our theme categories:)

Field Trips: None this time due to a busy schedule. If we had time, I had wanted to go to the science museum.

Sensory Table – We used scoops and buckets in with a lot of black beans, glow-in-the-dark stars and wooden space-themed figurines (found at the Target Dollar Spot).

Themed Books – There are a ton of amazing books about space! A lot of ours I found at Goodwill (my favorite place to hunt for theme books), especially the non-fiction books. Some that we love are: “ABCs of Space” by Chris Ferrie , “I Want To Be An Astronaut” by Byron Barton, “Interstellar Cinderella” by Deborah Underwood, “I Want To Be An Astronaut” by Ruby Brown and Alisa Coburn , and “Baby Astronaut” by Dr. Laura Gehl.
Themed TV show or movie – My kids loved watching the TV show “Creative Galaxy” on Amazon Prime. We don’t own it yet, but the other one I wanted to watch was the movie “Home.”

Themed Music – Here is our Spotify playlist for Space Week. We did so much dancing and singing this week – it was wonderful!

Art projects – I already shared details for our Galaxy Playdough that we did last year – I highly recommend it! We also made telescopes with toilet paper tubes, wax paper, a rubber band and some markers. First we decorated toilet paper tubes, then I added a square of wax paper attached with a rubber band, then I drew on stars (and planets, per Ava’s request) with a permanent marker. The kids really liked looking through it (see below to check out what the inside view looks like).

Food (optional) – Of course we had to try some Astronaut Ice Cream for Space Week! It was sweet with an interesting texture. I’m glad we tried it, but I might not make it a regular thing.

Like I said, this week is one of my favorites. Dan (my hubby) has always been a huge fan of all things space, so we invest in this topic more than some others, and pick little things up when we see them throughout the year. It’s fun to see the kids love the stuff he loves.