School-Age: Constellations

Ms. Carol planned and presented this week, since I'm out of town tomorrow, so I will share what she talked about at this week's programs.

1. Reading
For Ms. Carol's topic about constellations, she started the program off by reading Coyote Places the Stars by Harriet Peck Taylor. 

The kids and I loved listening to this story about the Coyote using his bow and arrow to move the stars into shapes of his animal friends. It was a beautiful Wasco folktale about the constellations that appear in the night sky.

2. Discussion

Ms. Carol had the kids help her define what a constellation was. Then she showed them a variety of constellations (just the shapes of the stars) to see if they could name any of them. There were plenty of facts that I learned about - like pointer stars! I had no idea that well-known constellations, like the Big Dipper, had stars that pointed to OTHER constellations, or stars, in them!

Ms. Carol also played night sky trivia with the kids.

3. Craft

At the end of the program, the kids got to make their own constellations. They were given a black piece of paper, a strip of 12 gold/silver star stickers, and chalk. They could put their stars down in any order and then, using chalk, could create their own constellation.

Here is one I made:

And a few our teens made:

Notes:

It was fun to see the creativity of our kids at the program coming up with their various constellations! This was a great week and I enjoyed taking a break and observing Ms. Carol do her thing!