Space

Space was a popular topic for us. My boy loves all things to do with space, rockets and planets. This was one of the first themes we tried out and definitely one we will revisit and improve on. I will detail each activity and add links to helpful resources.

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Model Rockets – resources: Plastic juice bottles, cardboard, white paint, brushes, strong glue, alien/space/face stickers (optional).

We made our space rockets by painting juice bottles with white paint. This took some time as the bottles needed a few coats of paint and needed to dry between each coat or the paint would wipe off. While we waited we cut two squares of cardboard from one of the many Amazon boxes we had accumulated. We then cut these into two triangles and painted these white too. Once everything was dry we stuck the triangles (wings) onto the bottle and drew on the detail with a permanent pen. Finally, we stuck on some alien stickers.

Space Yoga – Resources: Cosmic Kids yoga videos on youtube

Cosmic kids yoga videos on Youtube are great! We liked to try one out mid-morning as a wee brain break. There are lots of different stories, themes and exciting adventures which are all really engaging. The yoga moves are simple and easy to follow.

Rocket building – Resources: building blocks

We used our Duplo blocks to build lots of different styles of rockets which we then used in our imaginative play blasting off into space (always singing Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, we’re going to the moon!) and visiting all the planets.

The reality of this activity was that mummy built the rockets from instructions that came in the Duplo box while Robbie built towers. He definitely enjoyed playing blastoff and zooming them about though.

Space Art – Resources: cardboard, black paint, white paint, art pompoms, star and space stickers.

We used another of our trusty Amazon boxes here. As we didn’t have a large bit of box handy we Sello-taped two smaller pieces together. We painted the whole piece with two coats of black paint, then when it had dried spattered white paint over to create the star effect. Once all the paint was dry we decorated our Space scape with pompom meteors, giant sticker stars and unusual sticker spaceships.

To cover the tape mummy used a permanent marker as paint wasn’t working.

Space Terrain Messy Play – Resources: large bowls/containers, a variety of cooking utensils/ toys, different messy materials.

We used several cheap plastic bowls bought from Asda and Robbie’s Duplo box from Hobby Craft to hold the messy play materials. We used; oats, Cheerios, water with washing up liquid in and whisked with the electric whisk (this can also be done, more successfully, in a blender or food processor) and Gloup (cornflour and water). Robbie had whisks, different spoons, spatulas, paintbrushes, forks and toy animals to play with.

The reality of this activity was that Robbie was much more interested in eating the Cheerios than doing much messy play. We did a lot of directing mummy to play with the different materials and rescuing animals from them. Robbie loved to mix the different bowls together and this became the main focus of our time.

Space Themed Bedroom – Robbie has become so interested in space that we decided to redecorate his room with a space theme. We painted two of his walls a nice rich blue, two a nice light blue and bought some wall stickers of the planets, stars and rockets. We also got him space themed bedding, curtains, blind and lampshade (mostly from Dunelm)

Robbie loves his newly decorated room and loves looking at all the planets and stars and talking about their names and their defining characteristics.