The Ultimate Homeschool Space Unit: 3 Weeks of Crafts & STEM for Preschoolers

Blast off on a learning adventure with our complete 3-week homeschool space unit, perfect for preschoolers and kindergarteners. This hands-on lesson plan explores planets, stars, and rockets through fun crafts, sensory play, and simple STEM experiments. Guide your child through making a solar system mobile, creating constellations, and launching a film canister rocket. It's the perfect, easy-to-follow unit to spark a love for science and space in your early learner.

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Arturo's Amazing Space Adventure: A Three-Week Homeschool Unit

This unit is designed for Arturo, a curious 5-year-old, to explore the wonders of space through hands-on, creative, and playful activities. Each week focuses on a new theme, allowing for deep, mastery-based learning.

Week 1: A Journey Through the Planets

Learning Objective

By the end of the week, Arturo will be able to identify at least three planets by their appearance and share one fun fact about them. He will create a physical model representing the solar system.

Materials Needed

  • Various colors of Play-Doh or modeling clay (especially red, blue, green, orange)
  • Large sheet of black poster board or construction paper
  • Styrofoam balls in various sizes
  • Paint (various colors), paintbrushes, and water cup
  • String or yarn
  • A wire coat hanger or a sturdy stick/dowel
  • White chalk or a silver marker
  • Child-friendly books about planets (e.g., "Roaring Rockets" by Tony Mitton, "There's No Place Like Space" by Tui T. Sutherland)
  • Circular objects for tracing (lids, cups)

Lesson Activities

Day 1: What is a Planet?

  • Engage: Read a story about the solar system. As you read, ask questions like, "Wow, look at that red planet! I wonder what it's called?" Point out Earth and talk about how it's our special home.
  • Create: Introduce "Planet Play-Doh." Set out different colors of clay and challenge Arturo to create his favorite planets. Don't worry about accuracy; focus on creativity. Talk about the colors: "You're making a red planet! That looks like Mars. You're making a big swirly one! That reminds me of Jupiter."

Day 2: Our Solar System

  • Explore: Lay out the large black poster board. Together, use chalk or a silver marker to draw a giant circle for the Sun. Then draw big oval paths around the sun for the planets to travel on. This is their orbit!
  • Apply: Use the Play-Doh planets from yesterday (or make new ones). Have Arturo place each planet on an orbit around the paper sun. You can sing a simple planet song (like a version of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star": "Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, shining brighter than the stars...") as you place them.

Day 3-4: Planet Painting & Mobile Making

  • Build: It's time to build a more permanent solar system! Get out the styrofoam balls. Assign a planet to each ball (or let Arturo choose which planet each size represents). Let him paint them. This is a great time to talk about features: "Let's make sure Saturn gets its beautiful rings! We can cut one out of cardboard." "Jupiter needs a big red spot!"
  • Assemble: Once the planets are dry, help Arturo carefully tie a piece of string to each one. Then, tie them to the coat hanger or dowel to create a beautiful solar system mobile he can hang in his room. This reinforces the concept of planets hanging in space.

Day 5: Planet Expert Show-and-Tell

  • Assess & Celebrate: Have Arturo present his new solar system mobile. Ask him to point to a planet and tell you its name or what color it is. For example: "Show me our home, Earth." "Which planet is the red one?" "Which planet has rings?" Celebrate his amazing work as a space explorer!

Week 2: The Sun and a Sky Full of Stars

Learning Objective

By the end of the week, Arturo will understand that the Sun is our closest star and that stars make patterns called constellations. He will demonstrate how the Earth's rotation creates day and night.

Materials Needed

  • Flashlight
  • A globe or any round ball
  • Black or dark blue construction paper
  • Star stickers or a white/yellow crayon
  • A paper plate
  • Yellow and orange tissue paper, cut into small squares
  • Clear contact paper or glue
  • Hole punch and string
  • Marshmallows (mini and regular) and toothpicks

Lesson Activities

Day 1: Our Star, the Sun

  • Engage: Ask Arturo, "What is the biggest and brightest thing we see in the sky during the day?" Talk about the Sun. Explain that it's actually a star, just like the ones we see at night, but it's much, much closer to us, which is why it looks so big and bright and feels warm.
  • Create: Make a "Stained-Glass Sun Catcher." Cut out the center of a paper plate. Place a piece of clear contact paper (sticky side up) over the hole. Let Arturo stick yellow and orange tissue paper squares all over the sticky surface. Cover with another piece of contact paper to seal it. Punch a hole and hang it in the window to see the "sunlight" shine through.

Day 2: Day and Night

  • Demonstrate: Find a dark room. Give Arturo the ball (Earth) to hold. You hold the flashlight (Sun). Shine the light on the ball. Explain that the side with light is having "daytime." The side in the dark is having "nighttime."
  • Experiment: Have Arturo slowly spin the ball. He will see the light move across the surface. This simple, powerful visual shows him how rotation causes day and night. You can stick a little sticker on the ball to represent your house and watch it go from day to night and back again.

Day 3: Constellation Creator

  • Explore: Show Arturo pictures of simple constellations like the Big Dipper or Orion. Explain that people long ago connected the dots between stars to make pictures in the sky.
  • Create: Give Arturo black construction paper, star stickers, and a white crayon. Let him place the stickers wherever he wants, and then use the crayon to connect them and create his very own constellations. Ask him to name his creations (e.g., "The Toy Car," "The Dinosaur").

Day 4: Marshmallow Constellations

  • Build: Let's make 3D constellations! Use mini-marshmallows as stars and toothpicks to connect them. Arturo can try to replicate the Big Dipper or simply invent his own 3D star sculptures. This is a wonderful fine-motor skill and engineering activity. Plus, you can eat the extra "stars"!

Day 5: Star Gazing Party

  • Assess & Celebrate: Lay a blanket on the floor and turn off the lights. Use the flashlight to "spotlight" Arturo's paper constellations hanging on the wall. Ask him to tell you the story of his creations. You can also have him use the flashlight and ball again to explain to you why we have daytime.

Week 3: Rocket Ships and Space Missions

Learning Objective

By the end of the week, Arturo will understand that rockets are vehicles for space travel. He will design, build, and launch his own model rocket and role-play a complete space mission.

Materials Needed

  • Recycled materials: paper towel tubes, plastic bottles, cardboard boxes (one big enough to sit in!), paper cups, tape, aluminum foil.
  • Art supplies: Markers, crayons, glue, scissors.
  • Film canister (the kind with a lid that snaps inside)
  • Alka-Seltzer tablet
  • Water
  • Safety glasses (optional but good practice)
  • "Moon rocks" (crumpled aluminum foil or small, clean rocks)

Lesson Activities

Day 1-2: Design and Build a Rocket Ship

  • Engage: Watch a short, kid-friendly video of a real rocket launch. Practice counting down from 10 LOUDLY and shouting "Blast off!"
  • Design: Give Arturo a paper towel tube and other recycled materials. Ask him, "How can we turn this into a rocket?" Let him draw a plan or just start building. Help him tape on fins made from cardboard, a nose cone from a paper cup, and cover it in foil to make it shiny. This is his personal rocket model.
  • Build the Command Center: Decorate the large cardboard box to be his "Command Center" or "Rocket Cockpit." He can draw buttons, screens, and levers on the inside.

Day 3: The Rocket Launch Experiment

  • Hypothesize: Ask, "How do we make a rocket actually go UP?" Introduce the film canister rocket. "We are going to use a special fuel (Alka-Seltzer and water) to create pressure that pushes our rocket up."
  • Experiment (do this outside!): Put on safety glasses. Fill the film canister 1/3 full of water. Drop in half an Alka-Seltzer tablet, quickly snap the lid on, place it on the ground (lid-down), and step back. In a few seconds, POP! The canister will shoot into the air. Do it a few times—the excitement is unforgettable and a great lesson in action-reaction.

Day 4: Mission to the Moon!

  • Role-Play: It's mission day! Hide the "moon rocks" around the room or yard. Arturo puts on his "space suit" (could just be winter boots and a helmet made from a paper bag) and gets in his cardboard box rocket.
  • The Mission: Do a countdown. "Fly" his rocket (he can make whooshing sounds) to the "moon" (a designated couch or corner). He can then get out, walk with big, slow, bouncy "moon steps," and collect the rock samples in a bag. Then, he flies back to Earth.

Day 5: Mission Debrief

  • Assess & Celebrate: Sit down with Arturo, the "astronaut," and his moon rocks. Ask him about his mission. "What was your favorite part of being in space?" "What did your rocket need to blast off?" "What did you find on the moon?" This assesses his understanding through storytelling and celebrates the entire creative process.