grades 2 and 1- astronomy programs?

[kittie313]

And dh has already vetoed apologia. The oldest kids want to study astronomy this upcoming school year, so I'm putting up the general science I have already and looking for an astronomy program that will work for us. 2nd grader has learning challenges and 1st grader is highly gifted with motor delays (makes her mad too, she wants to write something but can't work the pencil to do it and then throws a fit so we use a LOT of letter stickers and stamps around here) They mainly want to learn the constellations I think, but if I'm going to drop general for astronomy they are GOING to learn about the other stuff a bit too. Can someone suggest a good book or two for this that will fit with a really relaxed (almost unschooler) style when coupled with a good telescope?

[LauraLoo]

This site is free, and I think it has some fun things to do. I supplemented this with other resources this past year. Don't get hung up on the grade levels - we found value in the K material as well as the 6th grade.

http://msnucleus.org/membership/html/k-6/uc/index.html

We also liked this reference encyclopedia:

http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Space-In...0822054&sr=8-6

[limette]

I don't have a curriculum or anything for you but you can get Stellarium downloaded onto your computer (it's free).

It shows all the constellations based on what time/day it is. You can also turn on the planets, and messier objects (nebulae, galaxies, star clusters).

It's really cool.

[meetoo]

We just did a 3-4 week astronomy unit (1st grade and pre-k tag along) We used some printables from HSS.com to make a Space book. Checked out tons of library books, we did some different experiments. Gravity, craters, bought some "mars" sand forget what else.... We visited some different museum exhibits, made a mural of our solar system, rented a magic school bus movie and some documentaries. We had a lot of fun and my kids learned a ton! I can not imagine spending any more then the 3-4 weeks we sent on it, though. Maybe it is our ADDness , but we were ready to move on. Here are a few sights we used.

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/space_lapbook.php

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/index.php

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/index.htm
this one had some neat songs and games.

http://webisto.com/space/

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html#

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/index.cfm

http://www.nineplanets.org/sol.html


we also used the stellarium download

[chfriend]

Hogwarts Summer Correspondence School yahoogroup has a files section that has a series of interesting astronomy lessons.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HSCS_Astronomy/

[kittie313]

Oh awesome, I'll download that thing onto my laptop and look into the other resources suggested, hopefullyI can find something that will really work well for us and our style to study astronomy. Now I just need to figure out how to do art (dd1 requested that we do painting)

[desertmom]

Stellarium is wonderful _ we've been using that, too, for quite a while now. But we needed a bridge from that to finding the planets, constellations, etc. outside. We found these... http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/catalogue.aspx?id=2630

Now, we check Stellarium to see what will be visible from our location that night around the time we'll go out (mom noting which direction to look), then we find the matching cards from the Usborne Spotter's pack and go outside to find them. I bought a pocket guide to astronomy geared toward kids called "A Little Giant Book of Astronomy by Melanie Melton Knocke that is nice for facts and trivia about planets, constellations, black holes, etc. that we've used a bit, too.

Also, fwiw, I think your daughter's idea to do painting as the arts end of her astronomy work is wonderful. You may want to check out some of the pictures online of nebulae and births of stars _ they're just beautiful and lend themselves well to inspiring paintings. Also, salt sprinkled on a deep, dark blue watercolor night sky gives a beautiful starry effect.

Oh, a possible chapter book to read with it: "George's Secret Key to the Universe," by Lucy and Stephen Hawking.

Have fun.

[kittie313]

Originally Posted by desertmom

Stellarium is wonderful _ we've been using that, too, for quite a while now. But we needed a bridge from that to finding the planets, constellations, etc. outside. We found these... http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/catalogue.aspx?id=2630

Now, we check Stellarium to see what will be visible from our location that night around the time we'll go out (mom noting which direction to look), then we find the matching cards from the Usborne Spotter's pack and go outside to find them. I bought a pocket guide to astronomy geared toward kids called "A Little Giant Book of Astronomy by Melanie Melton Knocke that is nice for facts and trivia about planets, constellations, black holes, etc. that we've used a bit, too.

Also, fwiw, I think your daughter's idea to do painting as the arts end of her astronomy work is wonderful. You may want to check out some of the pictures online of nebulae and births of stars _ they're just beautiful and lend themselves well to inspiring paintings. Also, salt sprinkled on a deep, dark blue watercolor night sky gives a beautiful starry effect.

Oh, a possible chapter book to read with it: "George's Secret Key to the Universe," by Lucy and Stephen Hawking.

Have fun.

Oh WOW I never thought to use our science studies to inspire art projects. What a GREAT idea! I have no clue where to start with processing and sorting all the great ideas I've gotten lately here on this board, oh man I wonder what else I can tie into our science studies? I'm more than open to all suggestions that occur, I'm kind of lacking in the creativity area (at least, as far as anything outside music, now I am overflowing with music ideas as a former pro musician and now working on my first composition)