Space Camp: Schooling in Summer

People often ask me if we take a break for the summer, or continue schooling throughout the whole summer. The answer is neither! We do take a break from our normal school structure, but it's become a tradition for us to do some sort of unit study for a few weeks. It's a great way to dive into a specific topic, and also get some of our 180 days done (which means we can take a slower pace throughout the school year). This year, at Sweet Pea's request, we studied space. As a starting place, I used the unit study from Little School of Smiths, called Me and My Place in Space. Here are some of the books we read, though this is not a comprehensive list, because I forgot to write them all down before returning them to the library!

Mousetronaut, by Mark Kelley
Roaring Rockets, by Tony Mitten
Moon: Earth's Best Friend, by Stacy McAnulty
The Moon Book, by Gail Gibbons
Sun: One in a Billion, by Stacy McAnulty
The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal, by Nick Seluk
The Planets, by Gail Gibbons
Solar System, by Jill McDonald
XO, Exoplanet, by Deborah Underwood
Planet Mercury, by Ann O. Squire
Planet Venus, by Christine Taylor-Butler
Earth: My First 4.54 Billion Years, by Stacy McAnulty
Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, by Oliver Jeffers
Mars: Earthlings Welcome, by Stacy McAnulty
Birthday on Mars, by Sara Schonfeld
Mousetronaut Goes to Mars, by Mark Kelly

The Largest Planet: Jupiter, by Nancy Loewen
Saturn, by Vanessa Black
Uranus, by Lori Dittmer
The Secrets of Uranus, by Thomas K. Adamson
The Secrets of Neptune, by Thomas K. Adamson
A Place for Pluto, by Stef Wade
How to be a Space Explorer, by Mark Brake

Saturn Could Sail and Other Fun Facts, by Laura Lyn DiSiena and Hannah Eliot

Galaxies, Galaxies! by Gail Gibbons
Ada and the Galaxies, by Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv
Starry Messenger, by Peter Sis
A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars, by Seth Fishman
Animals in the Sky, by Sara Gillingham

I have to give a special shout-out to Pluto Gets the Call, by Adam Rex. This was such a heartwarming and hilarious book, while also being full of good information. This was definitely our most read book during this unit study.

Now, on to our activities! We did kind of a lot, so I'll just share some of the highlights below.

We used Oreos to show the phases of the moon. Then we ate them, of course.

While learning about the sun, we made solar ovens to cook our lunch in.

We made craters, by dropping rocks of various sizes and shapes into flour.

Throughout this unit study, we used a different art medium to paint each of the planets. We used the finished products to make a solar system fact book. Each kid got to make their own. Here, the girls are making a marbled Venus.

Here is a hurricane in a bottle, resembling the storm on Jupiter known as the Great Red Spot.

Since Mars has the largest volcano in the solar system, we made our own volcano.

And here is one of the fact books that the girls made. We also made a moveable solar system.

Throughout this unit study, we also enjoyed watching videos about space. We particularly enjoyed the many Youtube videos of astronauts on the International Space Station, sharing snippets of their daily lives. We were inspired by them to make our own astronaut meal. We chose a simple one: peanut butter and honey on a tortilla.