Classroom Constellations

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

This morning we completed our stargazers. We can see many constellations by tilting our stargazers toward the light! Check us out!
This afternoon we learned all about stars and constellations in the night sky. We learned that stars are actually balls of hot gas. The Sun is the closest star we can see on our planet Earth. There are trillions of stars in the universe. Stars can be all different colors. The color the star is depends on its temperature. Blue stars are the hottest, yellow stars are medium, and red stars are the coldest. These stars gather in groups called clusters. To show what we learned, we wrote facts on star cut outs. Aleah, Riann, and Hunter learned that the blue stars are hotter than red stars. Nick learned that back in the day, people used stars as maps. Jacob R learned stars are not all the same temperature. Lily learned that stars are made of hot gas. Josylnn and Maria learned that the red star is the coolest. Kylie & Andrea learned that the white star is the second hottest star. Joe learned the sun is our star.

We can pick out a single star in the night sky by recognizing constellations. Constellations are pictures created by stars in the night sky. As a class, we created 7 constellations to hang on our classroom ceiling – our night sky. We created Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Leo, Cygnus, Hercules, Orion, and Cassiopeia. Below are pictures of us creating our constellations!