Night Sky Program - For School-Ager's

In my current position, I am responsible for programs for children ages 0 to 5. I typically do not present programs for School-Age children, but on occasion the School-Age librarian and I will trade off so that we get to experience the other side of things. Although I love the littler ones, and the enthusiasm I really wish I could bottle, it is nice to have opportunities to present programs to older kids every so often. For my School-Age program, I was very excited to teach about the night sky. 

1. We discussed what the kids see when they look up at the sky at night. It was a great starting-off point to see what the broad age range of kids already knew.

2. We read the book "How to Catch a Star" by Oliver Jeffers.

3. I presented star trivia and asked the kids about facts related to stars in the universe. We named constellations and I showed them pictures I found on Google image search of familiar constellations in the night sky without any leading information and had them guess on the name of the constellation. 

We are very lucky to be able to use a large television during our school-age programs. I hook our laptop up to the television and show PowerPoint presentations. I first showed them the image on the left of the stars in a formation and asked the kids what the constellation looked like. Then I showed them the picture on the right with the names of the stars and the name of the constellation. Finally, I showed them side-by-side so they could see how the constellation got its name.

4. We played a True OR False space trivia next. I said things like "A shooting star is a star flying through the night sky" or "The sun has spots" and the kids had to guess whether the statement was true or false. Then I gave them a little background information on the statement. We learned about the planets in our Solar System, Moons, the Sun, and more information about constellations. (The kids LOVE true/false games).

5. Finally, we did a craft with the black rainbow scratch paper. You can find it at office stores, or online at places like Oriental Trading or Amazon. I did a craft similar to this My Kid Craft. I did discover that the scratching paper makes a high-pitched squeaky noise if kids get down to the color part of the paper and keep trying to scratch. One of my kids thought this was great! So, something to keep in mind if I use the scratch paper again. 

But, otherwise, it was a great time and a nice mini-break from storytimes with the younger kids. Also, it is exciting to share things I have learned about with older kids that are able to ask questions and are so curious about the world!