A 5-day lesson plan where children discover space vehicles, how rockets work, and astronaut life. Activities include rocket crafts, balloon launches, and drama.
What children learn
- Distinguish rockets from space shuttles by their purpose, crew, and reuse.
- Explain that rocket engines carry oxygen and push hot gas backward to propel a rocket forward.
- Investigate how expelled air propels balloon and straw-launched rockets and how added weight affects a paper rocket.
- Describe astronauts' work, specialised roles, and the protective purpose of a spacesuit.
- Explore how the lack of gravity presented in the plan affects movement, balance, eating, and drinking in space.
Key activities
- Exploring Space Vehicles through pictures, video, playdough, and comparison
- Building a model rocket from paper tubes and geometric paper shapes
- Demonstrating rocket propulsion with released balloons and Space Centre dramatic play
- Building and launching straw-powered paper rockets, then testing added paper-clip weight
- Researching astronauts and constructing paper-plate astronaut figures
- Simulating disorientation and viewing how astronauts live, eat, and drink in space
You’ll need
rocket, shuttle, and astronaut pictures and books, playdough, paper tubes and plates, coloured paper and cut-outs, paint and crayons, scissors, glue and tape, balloons, bendable straws, paper clips, cardboard rocket and space-centre props
Structure: 5 days; each day: Thought of the Day, Tuning-in Time, Warm-up, Social Studies/Science, Creative Learning, English, Maths