Milky Way Galaxy

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

This morning we each decorated a moon to hang up in our classroom. We could choose to create a full moon or a crescent moon. We wrote an interesting fact that we had learned about the Moon on the back. Taylor and Austin liked decorating their moons with glitter.

When we were finished with our moon, we made a "Sun bracelet." We used a pipecleaner and a yellow, white, red, blue, green, and brown bead to create our bracelets.
In the afternoon we discussed what the sun bracelet stood for. The yellow bead stands for the Sun. The white bead stands for the light that the Sun gives the Earth. The red bead is for the heat the Sun gives Earth. The Sun gives us heat and lights so humans and animals can exist. This is what the brown bead stands for. The water of Earth is the blue bead and the green bead is the land. Emmitt's favorite thing about the sun is that solar flares burst from the sun. Andrea's favorite thing about the sun is that it has the most gravity.
This afternoon we talked about galaxies. We learned that each star is a part of a galaxy. There are millions and even trillions of stars in each galaxy! We live in the Milky Way Galaxy. There are several types of galaxies - Spiral, Spiral Barred, Irregular, and Elliptical. Each type has a core that is where the most stars are located.
We learned that a light-year is the distance light travels in one year. The Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 light-years wide, but our solar system is only about 1.5 light-years wide. Here is a neat video that shows the journey from Earth to the Milky Way Galaxy! This was Jacob I's and Austin's favorite video today.
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm-ucbDVyRU
Our Mission was to create our own galaxy. Here are pictures of our finished galaxies! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day! Today we took a break from learning about space to celebrate Valentine's Day! In the morning we decorated cereal boxes with paper, hearts, and stickers to make our Valentine mailboxes. Our party started at 2:00 in the afternoon. We all handed out our Valentines to our friends and had pink icecream floats to celebrate. They were delicious! We then opened our Valentines and thanked our friends. Our party was a lot of fun!

Papa Please Get the Moon For Me

Monday, February 13, 2012

We began our day by reading Papa Please Get the Moon For Me by Eric Carle. Here is a link to the video of the book - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Oy8u8W0_do. We learned that this is a fantasy story and that we could not really use a ladder to climb up to the moon. We then wrote an imaginary way of how we would capture the moon. This is how we would capture the moon:
Jacob R. would use a fishing pole or rope to capture the moon. Sebastian would jump off the highest cliff to capture the moon. Braeden would climb up the neck of a Brachiosaurus to reach the moon. Colin would use a flying truck to reach the moon. Josie would use a jump rope to jump up to the moon.

The Sun

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Hello Family and Friends!

Today we began talking about the Sun, the largest star in our solar system. The sun is a medium sized yellow star that provides light and heat to Earth. We learned today that the Sun is at the center of our solar system and all the planets orbit it. The Sun is a giant ball of burning gas and is the closest star to Earth. Gage was surprised to learn that heat and light reach Earth in only about 8 minutes. This is because the Sun is so very far away from Earth. Josie didn't know that the surface of the Sun is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That is VERY hot! I'm happy that the Sun is 93 million miles away from Earth, otherwise we would be fried! Gretchen also learned that more than one million Earths could fit inside the Sun. The Sun is gigantic!

Welcome to our Galaxy!

Hello Family Members and Friends!
Welcome to our classroom galaxy website! Each day the "astronauts of the day" will be updating this blog to share our exciting space adventures of the day with you! We have just launched our Space Unit and can't wait to learn all about our solar system! :)

~ Miss Glodosky



Wednesday, February 8, 2012


Today we launched our space unit! We learned that the moon orbits the Sun every month. The moon doesn't always look the same. The moon has different phases. There is a full moon each month. During our presentation we watched many videos of actual astronauts on the moon. We saw astronauts jumping on the moon, kicking rocks on the moon, and planting the American flag on the moon. We learned that you can jump a lot higher on the moon than on Earth because there is less gravity on the moon. This is a link to Taylor's favorite astronaut movie -
§http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efzYblYVUFk&feature=fvwrel. We also learned that there is no air or wind on the moon, so the footprints left by the astronauts can still be seen today! The astronauts left three items on the moon. They left an American flag, a footprint, and a plaque. As a class, we decided what we would each leave on the moon.


STUDENT MISSION


Our little astronauts were asked to start a "Moon Phase Diary." Students are to look out their window to view the moon each night. Students should then draw a picture of what the moon looks like on their "Moon Phase Calendar." If the moon is not visible each night, students can either look online or make a guess as to what the correct phase would be. This moon diary is to be kept for a whole month so students can see the entire phase cycle. We will be checking these calendars each day! :)

~ Miss Glodosky