Lisa Marchbanks
Our Solar System
I teach 4 year olds in my home and I strive to educate but also provide fun activities.
This theme was all about discovering what’s in our galaxy. It was exciting to read our books Big Dipper, Our Stars, Mission Solar System, and others. We made kaleidoscopes, counted stars and planets, made sensory galaxy bags, and used flour paint for a new painting experience to resemble the moon! To make the kaleidoscopes we used tubes, construction paper, plastic lids from the naan bread tubs (which were cut and edges smoothed by me). We used small beads from our alphabet sensory collection and then proceeded to put it together. It was difficult for 4 year olds but worth the trial and error. We simply used the same alphabet sensory bin that included the beads and stars to use in our sensory galaxy bags. First we squeezed the clear hair gel out of a giant bottle. We then added a few (don’t use too much) drops of liquid watercolor paint to the hair gel, closed the bag and squished the two around til the kids were happy with the look. Then the children opened back up their bag and added stars (counting as they added them) and glitter! We closed it up and I sealed it with clear packing tape. They were fantastic! Among all these fine motor skills we also worked on gross motor by using a balance beam to ‘walk on a space station rig, then used our balance hedgehogs to jump from planet to planet. What a fun 2 weeks of learning.
