Space Pre-K Unit Study

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To begin our 3K year we blasted into space! I decided to start us with a planets, solar system, space unit. My son didn’t know much about space and I wasn’t sure how much of a hit it would be. It turned out to be a massive hit and now my son wants to read, learn, do everything to do with space. In this blog post I am going to share the space activities we did in our Montessori-inspired homeschool PreK.

We are going to be following an around-the-world curriculum this year but with a new baby.and the Jewish holidays I decided to do a unit study before that. Why unit studies? Unit studies are a great way to dive deeper into a topic. They aid in reading comprehension because the child gains lots of background knowledge and vocabulary about a topic. I have found them to be a great way to anchor as I provide a range of activities meeting different goals and needs. Though they are not classically Montessori, they do work well for us using our Montessori materials and printouts. And why space? My son is an early reader and I noticed SO many young reader books are about space. I thought this would be a good place to start to get him some vocabulary and background knowledge.

The core of every unit for us is books! I have a separate post about our favorite space books from the unit. Books always offer the spine of learning for us. They grab my son’s interest and give us loads of background knowledge. We actually kicked this unit off with a trip to the planetarium as well. While I prefer doing field trips during a unit, we went while I was still pregnant (the last weekend before I gave birth!) which happened to be just before we started this unit. This actually worked very well in sparking interest.

So, here are the space-themed activities we did! I am starting with general activities for background knowledge on space and then have sections below for math, fine motor, and art.

Who am I? Space Matching

This space who am I? game is from Hands on Kids Activities. Here the description matches one of the photos and the goal is to read or listen to the description and think about which it is describing then match them. He enjoyed this and learned some more space facts! It was great partway through our space unit to see what he already knew about the different objects.

Planets Diagram with Fact Cards

I was unsure about buying this solar system model because it is a bit bigger than I would usually buy for just a unit. I am so glad I made the purchase though. Both my children loved it. My son could use the cards to find where each planet go and set it up on his own. This was FAR more engaging to him than three part cards would have been and it allowed him to learn the planet names and locations. Each card had information about the planet on it. My daughter just found it engaging and played with it a ton!

Space Puzzles

We love puzzles around here. My son has had the construction piece and play from Skillmatics (code Ayelet20 gives a discount) for over a year now and I opted to get him the space one as well. What is cool about this puzzle is it comes with matching cards. At the end you can read the facts on the cards and match them to the places on the puzzle. It means there is so much more to learn from the puzzle!

Baby sister even got a puzzle for this unit! She is 1 and a half and I am trying to include her more in our learning as well. This is a simple inset puzzle. It is actually from the same company as the solar system model but is doable for her at her age.

Build a Rocket

This build-a-rocket activity from Kiwi Co. was such a hit! It also comes with a solar system model but we have not done that yet (I was disappointed to see that required painting the planets. We will probably still do it but we haven’t yet). The rocket though was simple and so much fun! He could follow the directions and do much of it on his own. He then got to blast it off on his own and practice counting down as well!

Find The Planets Detective

This was a fun little activity! I made a detective folder for my son and let him collect clues to find our felt planets I had hidden. Each clue led to a planet and another clue to the next planet. This taught him a simple fact about each planet and reinforced the order of the planets!

Space Math Activities

My son is a huge reader but math is not as naturally enticing to him. Math activities related to a unit study always get him excited though! These are some of the math activities we did during this unit study. These work on identifying numbers 0-10 in different forms.

Count and Clip Space Wheel

Y loved this count and clip activity we got from Hands on Kids Activities. We tend to do some sort of count and clip for every unit. I love how this combines counting, fine motor skills (the clothespins work on the pincer grasp) and number recognition. We have little clips I got at the dollar spot at Target and they are so fun for this! You can also just write numbers on clothespins though.

Assemble the Rockets

This activity works on seeing numbers in different ways. It is a great way to practice subitizing and quickly recognizing some arrangements of numbers. We talked about tallies and practiced our counting and identification skills. It is also from Hands on Kids Activities.

Count and Cover with Sandpaper Numbers

I got this material from Hands on Kids Activities as well and it is designed to work on greater than and less than. We did that but my son wasn’t that into it (he found it annoying that he would have to count both sides each time to decide which had more). Instead I just used the cards and made a count and cover activity with our sandpaper numbers. This worked perfectly. My son counts the number of objects then finds the sandpaper number to cover it.

Ten Frame Snacktivity

Trader Joe’s has little goldfish-style crackers in the shape of rockets. I happened to have a container in my cabinets and found this to be the perfect time to pull them out. We used the ten frame and had him count out the number, put them in the ten-frame, and then he could eat them. I used sandpaper numbers and chose the number myself but you could also use a die (we have done this for other ten-frame activities).

Space Sudoku

This logic puzzle is so much fun even if you are not doing a space unit. It introduces sudoku to very young children using aliens instead of numbers at first. This logic game works on math skills!

Match the Written Numbers to the Numerals

We love vertical play on our big white board (it is Noriter Project and AyeletSpace gives a discount on their space set!) and I use it for lots of opportunities to connect across the board. One we do a lot is connecting numbers. I either have him count on one side and connect with the written numeral or connect between a spelled out number and the numeral. He can read all the numbers easily which makes that doable but in general connecting counting to written numals is probably a better option at this age.

Space Inspired Pre-K Art Activities

Learning to Draw a Sun and Rocket

This book, Doodles Help Handwriting, is fantastic and the first drawing is a sun. He enjoyed that and it inspired me to use the same techniques to give him a how to on drawing a rocket. He enjoyed that and started drawing rockets everywhere! My son has never been a big drawer so this was exciting.

Starry Night Inspired Process Art

So much of art is inspired by the sky and Starry Night is one of my favorites. I explained this to my son and then we did some Starry Night-inspired process art. We started by looking at Starry Night in our art book and discussing what parts of the night sky we see (stars and the moon). We then drew with white chalk and painted over with yellow paint using a Q-Tip. Thsi was very fun and great fine motor work working with both the chalk and the Q-tip.

Fine Motor Space Activities

Magnetic Tiles Vertical Tangram Puzzle

This was another fun puzzle sort of thing! It is similar to tangrams but done on a vertical surface with magnetic tiles. I traced the rockets and sun I made, took them off and let my son figure out where they go. Depending on your child’s ability you can trace the individual tiles or the shape as a whole (what I did was trace around the entire rocket and sun which made it more challenging).

Erase the Line with the Q-tip

I got this tip to work on pencil grip using a Q-Tip to erase. I laminated these pages and had him draw the lines, then erase them. We pretended he was a rocket blasting to each planet.

Rocket Kabob Snacktivity

This was a very simple fine motor snacktivity. I gave my son a kabob skewer, a bunch of blueberries, and one strawberry. He laced the blueberries and put the strawberry at the end to make a rocket!