Our theme this month is Blast Off to Space and we’re starting to learn about the rock planets. The first one is our favorite planet earth! We participated in a community challenge during circle time, made an earth collage for creative art, played a small group game to work on our numbers and gross motor skills and enjoyed a rolling activity for letter R. Since planet earth is the only planet with liquid I also created water play activity that is loosely Earth related. Read on for activities for our favorite planet Earth.
Our Favorite Planet Earth
We started our day talking about Earth and the colors we see on the planet from space, like in this picture on the daily topic poster:
Community Challenge Enough for All
Using what we learned about the colors of Earth from space, we continued on to our Community Challenge. We don’t always do the Community Challenges suggested in our Mother Goose Time lessons but if it seems like a good fit with my group and not too complicated, we give it a try!
Admittedly, this activity was a bit chaotic. That’s just normal and to be expected with six 1-4-year-olds. Still, I like the idea of taking turns, waiting for a turn, being apart of a group activity and working together to create something. In the end, it wasn’t much of anything that we created but it was about the process – sharing, tearing, following directions, gluing and learning about the colors of the earth. When we look at a picture of the Earth from space, we see blue water and green land so we used blue and green paper.
3rd Planet from the Sun
What a great game to play to learn the names of the planets and work on number recognition as well as gross motor skills. It’s fun to see the different approaches and actions of the children depending on their age and development.
After talking about each planet and identifying the number on the plate, I spread them out on the floor. We took turns standing on our color circle floor mats and tossing bean bags to specific numbers I would call out for them to identify.
The oldest one was all about trying to throw his bean bag the farthest and moved his planet plate as far away as he could and adjusted his throwing to attempt to land it on the plate. I noticed he experimented with where to put the plate and how hard to throw the beanbag. I could see he was working on different skills than just number identification and that was all right too.
The littlest ones would walk over and put their bean bags on the planet plate. I helped them stand in one spot and try to throw the bean bag to the plate. Either way, we’re learning!
Rolling R
What a fun way to learn about letter R! Using duct tape, I taped upper case letter R and lower case letter r to the table.
R is for rocket, rover, roll, red (car), race car, and rider (on the four-wheeler).
Rolling Letter R seems like such a simple activity, and it is, but it went over very well! We rolled the balls on R and drove the rover and race cars on the letter. Saying “letter R says rrrr” helps reinforce the sound letter R makes. I left the tape on the table for the rest of the day and the next and it was revisited many times.
Earth Collage
Loved this simple creative art project for our favorite planet Earth.
I helped tear the paper. I encourage my group to tear their own paper but I find they are often discouraged or not interested in it. Not sure why other than the process of tearing seems less interesting to them than the gluing. I know it can be difficult for little ones too. It seems easy but it’s not easy to tear small pieces of paper, especially cardstock like we are using here. So that’s how it went for us but that’s okay. Sometimes too many steps in an activity are overwhelming especially after a full morning of play and before lunch.
I like to play music that relates to our art during creative arts time so we listened to What a Wonderful World while working. I think my group really enjoys it too!
Earth Sensory Play
I wanted to incorporate water play on our favorite planet Earth day because Earth is the only planet with liquid water on its surface. I tend to use whatever I have and can find at the last minute so this is a bit of a random sensory bin. Guess what? They’re the best kind!
In the water table:
- green and blue bingo chips (sink and float)
- plastic balls (float)
- rocks
- blue glass gems
Some scoops and small plastic bottles:
Water play is the best!
See it in action – discovery upon discovery with water play!
Inflatable Globe and Space Shuttle and Astrounat Figures
