DAY FOUR: A Magnificent Meteorite Day
Welcome to our “Rocking Rock Research! – An Amazing DIY at Home Camp” series. What’s cooler than a cool looking rock? How about a cool looking rock that came from space! For Day 4, we focused on meteorites! We read through and watched a few online videos, created some snacks, crafted our own meteorites, and performed a science experiment. Read on for more details!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
If your kiddos haven’t maxed out their screen time yet, NASA has a few online web pages that help explain certain concepts, meteorites included: Meteorite | NASA Spaceplace – NASA Science for Kids. Kids can click into them to find out more Plus it was a bonus knowing they were on the NASA site – added to the “so cool!” factor 🙂
WHAT TO WATCH
For our video of the day, we watched a Magic School Bus episode on asteroids and comets. If only we could all go on field trips with Ms. Frizzle 🙂 Magic School Bus S2E11: Out of this World (Space Rocks)
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
For our themed snack of the day, we used our Vegetable Cutters to create some stars and comets out of cheese and veggies.
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. For our meteorite day, we couldn’t find a book specifically about meteorites, so we picked one on meteors.
- National Geographic Readers: Meteors by Melissa Stewart
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: ROCK, COMET, METEOR, METEOROID, METEORITE…
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices.
- Imagine a meteoroid falling through the sky destined to become a meteorite. If it could talk to the neighboring stars, what do you think it would say?
CRAFTS
For our craft of the day, we got the inspiration from doodlesandjots.com. In their This Summer Rocks! Meteorites tutorial, they created meteorites from play doh made from scratch. We modified ours to use gray Crayola Clay to save a bit of time but still loaded up on all the glitter, sequins, and beads! 🙂 🙂 🙂
STEM ACTIVITY
For our STEM Activity of the day, we turned again to NASA 🙂 JPL has an educator guide with a crater making activity: Whip Up A Moon-Like Crater. Essentially, you create the “moon” out of flour and a thin layer of cocoa then drop “impactors” which create craters. It’s a fun – but messy – experiment. The site also has some pdfs that you can use to supplement for additional learning.
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home play / summer camp guide! If you enjoyed this article, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest.
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other at home play / summer guides: DIY Summer Camps.
Happy Learning!
