Space Invaders

Our space unit is in full swing.  Here are just  a few things we've been doing.

We learned how to write a persuasive piece.  I read an anchor book,

and we talked about all the ways the main character in the story tried to convince his mom to let him have a dinosaur as a pet.  We analyzed if the reasons were good enough for mom to say yes.

Then I told the kiddos that they were going to be visited by an alien who wanted to live on Earth with them.  They were going to have to convince their parents to let them keep the alien.  I had 4 different pictures of aliens from which to choose.  We talked about all the features on each alien and what that alien could do for the household. The kiddos came up with great ideas. 

"He could use his four arms to vacuum and clean the house so you could relax more, mom." 

After all the brainstorming, the kids started their persuasive letters to their parents.  They turned out better than I had hoped, so of course, we hung them in the hallway!!!!

You can click the photo to enlarge.  (I think)

Below is an example of the Solar Systems we made in science.

 We were also lucky to have student teacher extraordinaire, Ms. Dougherty teach us all about the moon's surface with a cool concoction of flour and cocoa powder.  She dropped different sized spheres from different heights to show the kids how the space rocks hit the moon's surface and make the craters.  Her lesson was much more detailed than that of course, but my fingers are starting to hurt.

The kiddos had to write their predictions every time she used a different sphere and height.

See the craters.

Then they discussed the predictions and recorded what really happened, just like real scientists!