Theme - Space Theme

I did a space theme last year. I had the following bulletin boards: "Work that is out of this world" for my student's work; "Check out these future scientist" with pictures of my students doing different science activities; "Blast off with a good book" for our schoo's required reading program-the students decorated their own space shuttle with their name. Then we put them up on the board with the planets. Every time they passed a book, we moved their space shuttle "pass" a planet. For all of the boards I used black fabric with a silver boarder and glow in the dark stars.

Over my computer area I had a sign that said Lauch into cyberspace. My library had moon chairs in them and we had a lava lamp and mini space shuttles on top of the book case. The sign over the library said "NASA headquaters..Reading is essential". Also each of my chalk boards had a name. Flight Plan-daily schedule, Special Training-character ed board, Mission Control-Objectives and standards, Training-homeork board.

For jobs, I made simple badges with the job title on one side and the job description on the other. I had teams of 4 and they had to chose a space science name. In their groups that all had a job: Mission Specialist-materials manager, Pilot-group reporter, Co-Pilot-group recorder, & Computer Specialist-paper monitor.

Other ideas I had but didn't get to were Astronaut of the Month for student of the month; Our vocabulary is blasting off-word wall; We're blasting off to a stellar year-welcome board with students names in stars or space shuttles.

Constellations - Take a wire coat hanger pull the bottom of the hanger to create a diamond shape. Wrap plastic wrap (I have not had much luck with generic wrap for this activity.) Place a picture of a constellation underneath the plastic wrap, use fabric glow in the dark paint to paint the dots. I supply several choices of contellations to choice from.

Planet reports - Internet & book research (One of our standards consists of the students writing a multi-paragrah report.)

I begin by have the students write a friendly letter to an alien from a planet of their choice. They must introduce themselves and ask at least 3 questions that can be answered with factual information. Some of my students have asked if they go to school. That is a great question, but I do not except that as one of the 3 questions. Last year, one of my creative writers wrote questions like, "Do you have to where a coat to school in the morning?" I questioned this. My student replied that the alien would have to tell her what the atmosphere was like and we could look that up.
The letter writing is followed by the report, picture, and a model of the planet created by the students at home.

Postcards from the planets - Read the book 'Postcards from Pluto' by ?author?. Have the students create their own addressed to the school.

Center idea: Make constellation cans by collecting old film canisters, drill or punch holes in the shape of a constellation. In the center, the students mkae the constellation to the correct nametag.

We're doing a space unit right now! It's a great way to finish up the year, so exciting. Here are a few of the activities we do along with making a space book, much like the one mentioned above.

1. We make a space ship in our classroom. This year we're making a "space station" from a refrigerator box. I put a basket of space related books in the station along with a couple of old computer keyboards to simulate work stations. We add a couple of ice cream buckets with a circle cut out of one side. These are our space helmets. A couple of years ago I made "uniforms" from cheap white t-shirts. I copied a NASA (don't tell them - it's probably copyrighted) logo onto iron-on paper and put it on each shirt. We allow about 4 kids at a time into the station.

2. We do experiments to understand things in space. I got most of them from the wonderful Janice VanCleave books. We measure a close up tree and a far-away tree to see how big things can look tiny if they are far away. We listen for the crack of a bat across the playground to see the difference between how fast light travels and how fast sound travels. We create an envelope with a hole punched card inside. When it is brightly lit in front you can only see the envelope (like the day sky). But if the room is dark you can hold the envelope up and see the hole punches in the card (like stars in the night sky)

3. We make a constellation in a can. Each child brings a tin can from home. We choose a constellation, mark it on the end of the can and hammer a nail through each star. Then we shine a flashlight through the holes to make a constellation on our ceiling.

4. We spend a "day" in space. We decide on jobs astronauts would have and gather materials they would need. One child might be a navigator and he would need a star chart. Another child might be a security officer and she would need a badge and an area of the classroom to be the "brig". I set out several space related centers for the bulk of the kids, then kind of orchestrate a series of situations where we need certain crewmembers. The highlight of the day is our meal where we eat "space food" which is a little baggie of space fudge and a pouch juice drink.

5. We learn how rockets work by setting off a water rocket and a balloon rocket on a string.

My hope is that the students come away from these experiences thinking more like a scientist, and that they are excited about the idea of space travel.

I do a space unit everyyear and I thought you might like this picture. The planets hanging down were made by my students using balloons, newspapers, and glue water. Then we spray paint them.

I've done several bulletin boards on space. One involved the students decorating, coloring an astronaut and then I put a picture of their head in the helmet. The caption was "Kindergarten is out of this world. I had a black background with little shiney star stickers stuck on it.

Another idea we used that would be a little more artsy was the galaxy replicas we did. I mixed sand, confetti and glitter and they put glue on a black piece of construction paper to form a galaxy. Then, they used their finger to spread the glue into a thicker line and sprinkled the concoction on it.

We also did a board that said "I wish I may, I wish I might" and they did a creative writing piece on what they want to be when they grow up. This included an original picture along with their words.

Hope this helps!

*Your class is "Out of this World".
*Reading rockets
*10..9..8..7..etc...Blast off with (subject)
*Use the phases of the moon for fractions.
*Use stars to put the kids' names on for a reward/recognition system.

I teach 4th-6th grade special education. I did a space theme with the teacher across the hall this pass school year! FUN! Here are some ideas we did:
in the hall b/w our classes:

On each end of our hall we had a big sign hanging from the ceiling stating: "You Are Entering the Black Hole of Learning!" We hung black paper from top to bottom (a lot of work); put the Solar System on it and other space bulletin board stuff -astronaut, rocket, space ships- as we worked on work throughout the year we put in on the wall

Decorations in our classrooms:
Hung planets and shuttles from the Naval Museum in Florida I visited.

Bulletin Board Ideas:
We are blasting off to a Stellar Year-(in hall) Made a big space ship and had the students' names on individual little spaceships
We are Shooting for the Stars this Year! (big star in middle with students' names on individual stars)
Book Chart: We are reading our way through the Solar System
Computer Center: can’t remember but said something like Launching out into Cyberspace
Word Wall: Our Vocabulary is BLASTING OFF! (with a rocket I made)
Behavior Chart: Shooting for the Stars with Stellar Behavior
Have the different genre up: Genre Galaxy
Door- Welcome to Mrs. _____ Cosmic Quest or Welcome to Mrs. _____ Galaxy

We hung astronauts from the ceilings. We took digital pictures of teachers that our students would come in contact with ie. principal, asst. principal, P.E. teacher, Computer teacher, Speech teacher, etc. and made their faces big enough to fit in the astronauts faces! Precious!! Then we made a sign that stated: Our Floating Space Facts- or something like that. We hung big yellow stars and blue stars among the hanging astronauts and wrote on each star a fact like (3 x 3 = 9 any of the math facts; space facts, geometric shapes and their name; and thinking maps terms and the diagram- we teach thinking maps in our parish/county)

First Day of School: We dressed up like aliens! We had bought some black pants and long black shirts and glued stars, planets etc on them. You can get that at a craft store. We used a headband and attached some bead things on it and then hot glued huge goggle eyes on those. We also bought pointy elf shoes and spray painted them silver. Crazy I know!

Activities: Tried to center as much of the content around space-sometimes it was a stretch since I only teach language arts!

Spaceship glyph
Alien glyph-came out precious!

body color male (blue)
female (pink)
# of eyesgrade
# of armsmonth born
# of spotsage
mouthlike school (smile)
don’t like school
(smile)
Antennaeblue (left-handed)
yellow (right-handed)

Spelling words for the first 3-4 weeks were Space words. I use The Magic School Bus –Solar System to introduce the words. I don’t teach science so it gave the students some background info.

Poetry: Space alliterations and couplets

English: Tried to make sentences that dealt with space. If the students were being taught about

subjects: alien, spaceship, astronaut, star, planet, ….

Verbs: sparkle, zoom, roar, soar, fly, spin, rotate, …..

I saw this in one of my science workshops this past summer. These are the things they used... Mercury--marble; Venus--walnut; Earth--golf ball; Moon--raisin; Mars--acorn; Jupiter--basketball; Saturn--soccer ball; Uranus--softball; Neptune--grapefruit; Pluto--bean. The sun was a large hula hoop that they covered with yellow bulletin board paper.

A friend of mine created a very large "tent" using thick, black plastic. She used a fan to inflate the entire "tent." It was really neat and large enough for almost the entire class to fit in. She had painted the constellations, the moon, etc. on the inside. The kids loved it! They even used it for reading time. (I wish I had a picture because I'm sure it would speak more than my 1,000 words!!!):rolleyes:

A teacher I worked with had a rocket hung from her ceiling. She made it from a large cylinder (I think she got it from a grain and feed store)that she covered with construction paper. She made a large cone form poster board for the top and added fins to the bottom.

You could also make each planet from paper mache and hang them from your ceiling.

I am sure that NASA has a lot of posters for free or cheap for teachers.

What about focussing on the constellations? You could draw one on the board each day and have the kids copy it into their star journals. You could also turn your ceiling into a constellation map. I have a couple of good resource books if you would like the titles.

Have you ever had your local or college astronomy club bring out their telescopes for a star gazing party? Also check with you local muesem to see if they have a portable star lab. I was just trained how to use ours so I can check out this portable planetarium and use it at my school.

I would love for you to share what you have done in the past. Astronomy is a new interest for me and I might use it as a theme next year.

It sounds like a lot of fun! Good Luck!

You could have a board displaying student work and title it "Work That's Out Of This World!"

"Blast Off for a 5th Grade Adventure" for your door.

"Reading Rocket" maybe make a rocket that is at the entrance of your book nook where they enter.

if this is what you're looking for, but it came to mind and might be useful for something.

have kids make "space capsules" out of Pringles cans. they can decorate to look like rockets and either
*put in there a letter to themselves for end of year (hopes and fears of the year...)
*or their ideas about space travel--would they like to go on the moon? life in space? etc.

you could hang these by stringing with fishing line or post on bull board with velcro.

The picture only shows a small part of the board, but I thought it might give you an idea. I cover a big wall in the hallway with it. I blew up a picture of an astronaut on poster board and cut out the face. I then took pictures of each child behind the cutout. Then I put their pictures up like they were floating in space. lol

I am going to post a pic of a child so that you can see the close up.

Use black tule netting drapped around the ceiling, boards, etc. with tiny Christmas lights in it Hang silver/gold stars

The job board could be called "Mission Control"

I bought an astronaut notepad at our teacher store and cute out the face. I put their pictures in it on my door with a caption that said, "3rd grade..What a Blast!" They loved it! I used black paper and put a large rocket on it with the astronaut pics around it.

I once decorated the door with "Third Grade is Out of the World" and stuffed a big earth on the side of the door. The back ground was black. I let the students paint styrofoam balls cut in half to look like the planets. I taught older students so it was part of a research project. Then I attached the planets to the door. It came out really cute and the kids felt ownership for it.

I did a cute board titled, "Looking for a "Space" to read?" I took pictures of my students reading on the school bus, playground, baseball field, in the principal's office, and other places, and I posted them on the board with stars and planets.

My friend did a space theme a few years ago and I thought of a few of her bulletin board headers:

"Blast Off into A Great Year"
"Blast Off into Reading"
"We're Soaring to Succes"
"We're Shooting for the Stars!"
"Out of this World Work!"
Reading area was called "Reader's Galaxy"

Here are my ideas for next year:

huge sun on ceiling with word wall in it.
inner planets and earth and moon around sun
hang stars with students names on them from the ceiling
job board could be called "Mission Control"

"4th grade..What a Blast!"
Lauch into cyberspace
"Shoot for the Stars".

Students: Make the moon's phases in groups with paper plates; these are the group names.

How about using some of these words?

Mission
Accomplished
Astronauts
Agenda
Technicians
Targets
Tasks
Scientists
Support Team
Researchers
Schedules
Recruits
Cadets
Teams

Researchers Roster of _______

I have posted rocket ships in my classroom and a list of reasons why or how you can move yourself up to the top of the rocket ship....then I labled the rocket ships from a to z with a small space for each letter so that when I child earns a reward he/she can color in the a space then the b space and so on up the rocket. When they reach the letter z they get to have lunch with me at Wendy's (simply because there is one very close to our school) this way each child has a chance to win the reward but obvoiusly if you're caught being good you are going to fill in your rocket more quickly and thus have more rockets to fill in and more lunches with the teacher. I call the wall blasting off to good behavior. I reward the same things you do....good listening, being helpful or going out of your way to be helpful for someone. completing your homework is one I use and boy has homework been completed more often. but you get the idea....My kids just love it and when ever someone visits our room some child will drag the visitor to see the rockets.

I did a space theme last year and used the title "Stellar Behavior". I made 3 planets, 1 green, 1 yellow and 1 red. Each child had a little rocket with their name on it. I use the 1,2,3 Magic discipline system and had them move their rockets from green to yellow etc...