Shooting Stars and Comet Tails

Teaching budding astronomers is so much fun. I just love spending quality time working with the kids and this months Theme from Mother Goose Time is perfect for working with all of the kids. The theme grows up to the big kids level with very little work. One thing I love is how Mother Goose time helps me find fun ways to help drive concepts home for kids of any age like they did with the comet tails craft.

Mother Goose Time sent transparent pattern blocks for the kids this month so I went and ordered a light tracing pad for the kids to use with them. In the comet day, they included a few pattern designs including this comet perfect for the lesson. The kids have enjoyed this activity over and over and love using the blocks to make designs directly on the pad.

We discussed that a shooting star is a comet that works its way into our atmosphere and burns up as it travels. Hopefully, when it warms up we will get lucky and see one at night this year. To help the kids really connect and have fun we made comet tails and ran through the house as comets. We used the arch between the living rooms to represent breaking through the atmosphere from space where we would fly as shooting stars.

There really is nothing better than watching your children find joy in learning something new in a fun hands-on way.