Project-based learning allows students to control the direction and pace of their learning.

Activities that promote investigation, critical thinking, and hands-on subject matter are also central to project-based learning.

These project-based activities focus on basic principles of physics, structural, and mechanical engineering.

By using a variety of materials to construct constellations, your little one is creating a physical model to help them gain a greater understanding of the natural world. To initiate your little astronomer into the realm of the constellations, we read a book about people who lived long ago.

These people did not have telescopes and computers to tell them about the stars they saw in the sky, and so they created images based on the patterns they perceived.

To apply our understanding of these fascinating images, we created the Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Andromeda constellations using a variety of materials.

Our first project consisted of lacing cards and perler beads, and the second contained a combination of rocks and chalk.

Sensory activities provide children with another meaningful avenue for learning.

Sensory tables rotated regularly with wondrous materials are worthwhile investments for hours of  learning, exploring, and fun.

This project activated the senses to include some of our younger astronauts into our voyages through the cosmos.

Using dyed salt as our space dust, small Earth shaped balls, confetti stars, jars, and space toys, we engaged our hands and hearts to learn more about outer space!

Science concepts, such as cause and effect (what happens when materials are combined) and gravity (space dust comes down the funnel, not up) were explored throughout this activity.

Students also had the opportunity to work on their problem-solving and decision-making skills as they determined how to manipulate and use the materials.

Lastly, this activity provided an open-ended opportunity for your little one to enjoy the process rather than the product – how she used the space dust was much more important than what she made.

Using creative thinking skills and expressing one’s creativity are important self-esteem builders.

Children imitate what they see and hear through their play. Because astronomy is a multifaceted subject, there are so many new words and actions to remember!

This can be confusing to the young learner, and so creative learning experiences can help them integrate all of this new information.

For this activity, we combined dramatic and sensory play with science to collect moon rocks from our closest planetary neighbor.

A good way to recall and reflect on these new experiences is to have your little ones re-create the actions and sounds that were meaningful to them.

Using rocks and flour as our moon, paper plates as our helmets, dish gloves, and plastic bottles as our oxygen tanks, we not only collected moon rocks from the surface of the moon, but analyzed them in our “lab”.

These two different “situations” enabled your budding astronaut to practice new vocabulary, problem solve with a variety of materials, and role play with their friends!

Preschool is an important time for young children to begin developing the skills needed to describe their experiences.  Beyond a strong vocabulary, children can grow to observe, remember, and give an independent account of their thoughts. To help your little ones grow in their descriptive abilities, we talked about the size of the planets and their relation to one another. Using Playdoh, and a diagram of the eight planets, we discussed words such as big, large, heavy, small and their associated forms (bigger, larger, heavier, smaller). By manipulating the Playdoh into spherical shapes, students were able to experience a range of sensations that provided a context for them to clearly distinguish sensory stimuli. This project also provided the opportunity to reinforce the different forms of these descriptive words so they could narrate the physical act of what they were doing.