¡Ride Sally Ride!

Foto credit:  NASA

Thirty years ago today, Sally Ride, astronaut and Physicist, became the first woman in space, flying in the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger! Sally was a pioneer and dedicated her life to Science education – particularly focusing on girls.

We are particularly grateful to all of Sally’s efforts and accomplishments as we have a budding astronauta of our own!

 

Unfortunately, Sally passed away last July, but her legacy will live on forever.

Gracias Sally!  And keep on riding!

Studying about el Espacio

In Octubre we studied about Space since Sofía was going to be an astronauta for Halloween. Not only did we do actividades and art projects about Space, we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum twice.  The first time was to see the rockets, flying machines, and astronauta suits.  Sofía SQUEELED with joy when she saw all the gigantic rockets!  She loved it!

The second time we returned specifically to watch a Sesame Street movie One World, One Sky, about Space in the planetarium.  This movie was espectacular and if you have a chance to visit on a Friday morning, this is a must see for youngsters.  The presentation in the planetarium was amazing and really it is hard to go wrong with Elmo and Big Bird.

There are also many hands-on actividades for niños to experience which of course have to do with space, flying, physics and science.  Although Sofía couldn’t really understand and grasp the entire concepts of what she was playing with…it didn’t matter.  It was fun!

 

The Smithsonian also offers a few items in the gift shop targeted specifically at girls. 
Hello Kitty just put the icing on the cake for Sofía to like Space study.

 

And really, Barbie is looking rather cool in her NASA uniform! 
All this Space exploration inspired Sofía to create a Baile de Astronauta!

 

But the best part of all our Space exploration was yesterday at desayuno.  Sofía looked at me and asked, “Mami, ¿cúando voy a poder viajar al espacio?”(When am I going to be able to travel to outer space?”

Astronauta Printable Pack Actividades

We have been concentrating on Space and Astronautas for a while since Sofía is going to be an Astronauta for Trick or Treating on Halloween.

Jolanthe from Homeschool Creations has some great resources for a Space unit.  Her entire packet can be found and downloadedfor free here!  I thought the actividades were great – I haven’t used them all yet and I did make some accommodations for language and age.

Here is what we did!

Sequencing

I cut out the cohete espaciales and Sofía put them in order (Both ways, increasing size and decreasing size.)  We did this a few times for various days before we glued them on paper.  She liked the actividad.

Matching Shadows

 Again, I cut out the squares and gave them to Sofía to match together.  She enjoys repeating the actividad several times.  The next day, I let her glue them in pairs on the paper.  She was very particular about HOW she wanted them lined up.

Countdown and Cutting!

  We talked about how a “countdown” works and practiced saying the numbers backwards and forwards.  We even watched NASA video clips of countdowns and take-off!  Over a few days, Sofía cut out the numbers all by herself!  (She LOVES cutting paper!) Then she put them in order and together we glued the numbers on the paper so they would fit.  ¡Despuegue!

 

Letter Matching

Sofía colored her female astronauta and then I gave her the construction paper already prepared with writing on it.  The actividad was to match letters together.  The construction paper had letters written to spell out Astronauta and Sofía had to find the proper card with the corresponding letter on it and then glue each one down.   (She really does tell me that she wants to be an Astronauta, by the way!)