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Fun Ideas: Learning About Astronomy

All of our Educators/Nannies will receive a kete containing a star-shaped cookie cutter with recipes to make cookies and salt-dough stars. Accompanying this is a booklet with more ideas to celebrate Matariki with tamariki.

Here’s some more fun ideas for children of all ages to learn about astronomy:

Infants

Create a hanging mobile of stars and planets; play and sing songs about planets and stars such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; attach home-made decorated stars to a safety mirror; securely attach glow in the dark stars on a wall away from bedding and little hands; make sparkly sensory bottles.

Toddlers

Create art of the night sky using black paper and white or sparkly paint, and tap the paint brush to create splatters; visit the library to find books on the solar system; set up a dark space indoors with fairy lights and torches; create an astronaut training obstacle course and work as a team to assemble pieces of a home-made pretend telescope!

Young Children

Design and make a telescope or rocket from cardboard, plumbing tubes and other recyclable materials; simple rocket experiments suitable for children are available online for extra fun!; create a solar system of planets with paper-mache; explore online virtual tours of the solar system; go stargazing and constellation spotting – can you find Matariki or the Southern Cross?

Want to find Matariki? Here’s another great You Tube video that explains how to find Matariki: https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/discover-collections/read-watch-play/matariki-maori-new-year/what-and-who-matariki/watch-how-find

The learning outcomes from Te Whāriki for astronomy include:

Exploration Mana aotūroa

Their play is valued as meaningful learning and the importance of spontaneous play is recognised: Playing, imagining, inventing and experimenting | te whakaaro me te tūhurahura i te pūtaiao

They learn strategies for active exploration, thinking and reasoning: Using a range of strategies for reasoning and problem solving | te hīraurau hopanga

They develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical and material worlds: Making sense of their worlds by generating and refining working theories | te rangahau me te mātauranga