I love teaching about space because students are always so engaged in the learning activities! In this post, I’m going to share some of my favorite space activities for kindergarten that you can use to put together an engaging unit.
I like to spend about a week doing all things space. We learn about planets, the phases of the moon, and the stars with these kindergarten space activities We have so much fun while doing it! Here are twelve space activity ideas that you can use if you want to put together your own space unit.
During our week-long study of space, students work on writing and illustrating sentences about space as part of their morning work routine. There is a new sentence each day. I love that I can differentiate this simple activity. Some students are ready to copy the sentence all on their own; whereas others need a little extra support. For those students, the tracing option is just what they need.
I also have some new Make it Neat space-themed handwriting and sentence practice activities. These make a great addition to morning work or you can use them at a different time throughout the day. You could also add these activities to a writing center.
One of the first topics you can cover during your space unit is the moon and its phases. The Moon Seems to Change by Franklyn M. Branley is a fantastic book for learning about the phases of the moon. We use this picture book throughout our space week.
We have fun learning while diving into this text and completing moon phase activities. This is a great way for students to review what they’re learning about the moon!
We take some time to discuss the text a little further. We learn about the author’s purpose and students write about why they think the author wrote the book.
Kindergarteners love talking about astronauts! Many of my students, each and every year, would say they wanted to be an astronaut. This writing response activity is a fun way for them to tell you how they would feel about going to the moon.
The Moon Seems to Change lesson plans and activities can be found here:
In addition to The Moon Seems to Change, we read other books about space. Pebble Books from Scholastic are always a go-to for me! However, I recently discovered the author, Rebecca McDonald and she has some GREAT books for young learners. She has a few space books that would be perfect to share with your students. She even has some in Spanish and French. So cool!
There is also a book about the solar system included in my Exploring Space unit. I use this book to focus on some great space vocabulary.
It’s always a great idea to create an anchor chart to display student learning throughout the week. I used some black paper and chalk to match our space theme. You could also probably use a white crayon on the black paper.
Students love to write about space topics! This is why I like to use outer space as inspiration for informational writing practice. Students can create a book during the space unit, adding a page each day about something new they learned.
In the solar system unit, there is a writing activity where students tell what they would do if they went to the moon. I like to use these writing pieces and create a class book.
This is a fun chart to create that shows how far apart the planets are. We used our shoes to measure the distance and write about it. This is a fun way to practice math skills like counting, comparing, and nonstandard measurement!
An easy way to incorporate the unit theme into your daily routine is with engaging centers! Students will love to practice literacy and math skills with these space-themed centers.
The math and literacy centers are available in the Exploring Space unit.
This nonfiction listening center is perfect for our listening station. There is a QR code on each response sheet so students can easily scan and listen to the book about planets using a classroom device. One of my favorite activities for students to complete at this listening center is learning about the order of the planets. It is a simple cut and glue activity and students can use the book or book recording for support.
If you are looking for some digital activities, these science interactive books are great! There is a book about planets and also about stars. These can be used in Google Slides or Seesaw.
We love art projects! These rocketships are the best! This craft is from the Engaging Readers unit for the book, The Moon Seems to Change.
Stem activities are a great way to keep students engaged in learning. In our Science, Math, and More unit for The Moon Seems to Change, students use paper towel tubes and heavy construction paper or cardstock to create telescopes. You can find the resources for this stem project here:
Learning how to make astronaut dessert is amazing! Incorporating something students can eat makes learning that much more engaging. We used this to practice our how-to writing. Such a fun activity!
The recipe for the space snack and how-to writing activity can be found here:
I hope this post has given you some inspiration for a fun space unit in your classroom. Enjoy teaching with these space activities for kindergarten!
My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
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3 Responses
This is super fantastic! Your post made my two daughters get more interested in the outer space, the stars and the Moon! Thank you for sharing!
I so glad to hear that!!!!! Thank you!
Ok