RELATIONSHIP...a logical or natural association between two or more things... ...the connections, dealings, or associations drawing together persons, groups, or nations...AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY

We have chosen to create a year long thematic unit titled "Relationships" for our kindergarten-first grade program. The idea came from something we felt was missing from our own education, "the big picture." Everything in life is related; one event has an effect on another. We hope to encourage children to make these connections through our study of:

Farms / Plants & Insects, life science, first quarter
Native Americans, social studies, second quarter
Earth, Sun & Moon, earth science, third quarter
Literature of Dr. Suess, language arts, fourth quarter

Throughout these units we will reflect on the following "big ideas" of relationships:

chain of events
reciprocity and synergy
cause and effect
interdependence

These main ideas and a sense of wonder will form the backbone of our lessons. We have chosen to write the Earth, Sun & Moon unit in great detail because we have the other units in place in our curriculum. This unit is heavily based on inquiry and activities. We want the children to wonder "why?" We want to foster and facilitate their creativity in thought, word and deed!

Storytelling

To form a natural bridge between our previous unit, "Native Americans" and our "Earth, Sun & Moon", we will tell the story, "How the Stars Came To Be".

Students may use hand puppets to perform this play based on Native American legends. We will take time to discuss why this story may have been told.

"Did you ever wonder about the stars?"

Sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

Do the motions to "Bend and Stretch (reach for the stars...)" "Star light, Star bright", etc.

Children will write their own wish on a cutout star and decorate with photo for a locker tag.

As a home connection we will send to families a simple fact sheet with diagrams illustrating such concepts as rotation, orbit, day/night, and seasons (to help the other adults, like us, who feel a bit "fuzzy" on their earth science!)

Concepts

Concept 1. What does planet Earth look like?

Another Point of View! In group: Teacher plays "space" music, e.g. ______________from 2001 Space Odyssey or "Planets" by Horst. Children close their eyes.
"You're sitting on your star, perhaps you've named it. Do you see the Big Dipper? Is that red planet, Mars? Watch out for the meteor! Look for planet Earth...what do you see? Shape? Size? Color? Let's take a closer look."
Show an actual photograph of the earth from space (The Third Planet and Earth, Our Planet in Space ).

Independent Reading One of the weekly "book boxes" will contain picture books about space. One group of students each day will use these books to find as many photos of earth as they read non fiction.

Computer Use Another group of children each day will view the computer program we designed using information and photographs from sources such as NASA, Kennedy Space Center and others taken from the Internet.

Vocabulary Building Read Stargazers. Note the definition of astronomer and use of telescope.

"Remember when we sat on our stars and looked toward earth...now tell me the "space" words you heard" ( earth, star, moon, meteorite, planet, Big Dipper, space, observatory, planetarium, constellation, binoculars, etc.)

Teacher keeps a running record for theme word list, visible to entire class.

Work Stations Activities will include:

• Universe math: roll the dice, stamp the stars, create a book of math facts.

• Constellation : using red, blue and gold stickers, students will create their own star constellation and name it. Have available the book, Stargazers.

• Art Stars: children cut and dye coffee filters to create own stars. They will refer to a temperature chart to decide what color to make a hottest star, a medium star or a coolest star. Be sure to give them some glitter!

Teacher Modelling
Model speaking and writing with a sentence starter such as "I sat on my star and I saw..."

Read My Place in Space .
Teacher models a cumulative story, such as ...
This is the planet I live on...
This is the hemisphere on the planet I live on...
This is the continent of the hemisphere on the planet I live on...etc.

Students make own flip book from a given pattern to relate this cumulative story.
Audio Visual View the video, VHS 961G "Junior Space Scientist: Riding in the Sky", 8 min.

Bridge to concept 2.: read Mother Earth's Counting Book
Discuss illustrations. Do children notice the sun and moon in relation to the earth?
Give children free exploration with water colors.
Using the book as a model, class will create a counting book illustrating knowledge gained from the two prior units, i.e.,
2 ears of corn growing in a row
3 beetles climbing in the grass
4 teepees decorated with painted symbols

Concept 2. What are physical characteristics of the the sun and moon in relation to the earth.

scale, location, gravity, light, atmosphere, topography (craters, rivers, mountains, black holes,)

Teach the song, "Sitting In the Bathtub, Looking At the Moon" (to the tune of "Clair du Lune". Ask, "Do you ever look at the moon?"

KWL activity with class: "What do you know about the moon?"

Read What the Moon is Like. Check KWL list and add or cross off.

To better understand terms like crater and meteorite have children use large and small marbles to drop into deep dishes of flour.

Read pages 11-17 in Moons and Rings
Class makes a book comparing and contrasting the moon to the earth. Class generates a list of earth and moon facts. Then each child selects a fact to illustrate. Example:
page 1: The earth is full of water.
page 2: The moon is full of dust.

Performance

Using the same class generated list, create a readers theater which features a dialogue between the earth and moon.Teachers can introduce the idea by reading their own dialogue created during our planning.

Read The Sun Our Nearest Star and discuss what we know.

Sing and do movement ( creating patterns to use) to Raffi song: "Mr Sun" Try whistling ! Think of new lyrics.

Gravity

Explore! Pose the question, "Can you ever jump high enough to not come down?" Have children take turns jumping off chairs and from different height objects on the playground. Talk about why we always land on the ground. Accept children's naive notions.

Predicting, Observing, Comparing

Try dropping objects of different sizes from the same height. Be sure to make predictions, first. Do experiments.

"Does anyone want to change their hypothesis?"

Return to classroom to debrief, compare results and to draw conclusions.

Audio Visual

View the video VHS 962G, "Jr. Space Scientist: Voyage to the Moon", 9 min. and the video VHS380G, "Exploring the World of Science: #05, The Moon" There are nine other videos in this series.

Moon Gravity

Read The Magic School Bus, Lost in the Solar System. Discuss the fact that the moon has 1/6 the gravity as on earth. "What can that mean? Well, if a person could leap 2 feet here on earth, s/he could leap six times as far on the moon. Anyone know how many feet that would be? How can we figure it? Do we need a calculator?"

A Physical Model

A few children could model a long jump and others could measure it with laminated paper footprints. "That's how far you can jump on earth! Now how far would that jump be on the moon?" Discuss. Calculate. With small groups of children use the hallway to repeat the process for each. Have each child record their distance by using footprints placed on the floor. Have the child figure the moon distance and then record it next to the earth distance. Record the distance on cutout "moon boots" and display.

Promote Sight Words

Add gravity , solar system and any other new words to our theme list. Throughout the weeks as students become familiar with the theme words, suggest the class select some words for our alphabetical "word wall".

Story Mapping

Read Wait Till The Moon is Full. Enjoy the delightful story. Identify main characters, setting, problem and resolution. Act out beginning, middle, end. Retell the story.

Teacher models writing during journal time as she tells the story of Sir Isaac Newton.

Bridge to concept 3.

Before doing the next experiment, pose the question,"Why doesn't the moon float away?" Do the potato experiment demonstrating the gravitational pull of the earth. Poke a hole in the potato, then tie a stout string through it holding potato firmly. Swing potato around your head, your hand acting as the earth. The potato is the moon. Children try it. "Tell us what you feel as you swing the potato. What do you notice? Do you feel a strong pull of the string: the pull of the string is the pull of gravity. The potato is the moon staying the same distance from my hand, the earth. Another way to say that is 'The moon stays in orbit around the earth'."

Concept 3. How do the earth, sun and moon work to create the world as we know it? night and day, seasons, reflected light

Role play an "earth" child holding the hand of a "moon" child as the moon orbits around the earth. Create tension and pull through partner rotation.

Small groups of children take turns wearing the labels, "earth", "moon" and "sun". The labels are color coded to the "orbits" taped to the floor. Children can direct those wearing labels where they should stand.

Generate questions such as "What should the moon be doing?" (orbiting the earth)

"Does the earth stand still? Why is this tape here?" ( the earth orbits the sun)

"Does the sun have a path to follow?" (the sun stands still).

Encourage Mastery

After several practices, vary the activity: the teacher can whisper in a child's ear, "Earth, moon or sun". This time they wear no labels; maybe the tape is no longer colored. Can the children direct themselves to the proper orbits?

Make the transition to more symbolic representation by using three balls: a golf, a tennis or softball and the 3 foot diameter gym ball. Encourage the children to predict which ball represents each body. Perhaps some children will volunteer to locate information in a space book to validate the hypotheses.

After the children have rolled the balls around the floor tape orbits many times, they will demonstrate their understanding of scale and system by completing the following project: Each student will be given two blank sheets of construction paper along with various sized circles to trace. They will be directed to represent what they know about the sun, moon and earth. This could be put in rubric form to serve as an authentic assessment.

Day/Night

Read the book, Earth, Moon and Sun. Do the activity on pages 14&15. Use a flashlight and ball to represent day and night.

Read the big book, Night is Coming, from the earth science kindergarten kit.

Have children create a Day/Night Wheel by cutting out a large circle which has a line drawn down the middle. Then have children draw what they do at day and at night. Attach a spinner to center. Have children spin then tell about an activity. For writing process have them complete the sentences, "In the daytime I..." and "In the nighttime I..."

Teach the song, "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. Perhaps, this song can be used during an end-of-the-unit performance.

Rotation

For a good illustration of rotation read the book, Where Are the Stars During the Day? The earth rotates. Do the following activity:

One person is the "sun" holding a flash light. Another wears on their shirt a large circle representing our place on earth. As "earth" slowly turns or rotates, we will see the "sunshine" or the light and then the lack of the light. The class will slowly chant the time as the "sun come up"... "six o'clock, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock..." The teacher then says, "It's nine o'clock in the morning, what would we be doing now? We'd be in school! If it's Saturday, we'd be watching cartoons! Let's keep counting... ten o'clock..." The person who is earth must move to the beat of our counting. We will check to be sure the light corresponds to that part of day or night.

Homework

A small booklet, called "Give Me the Time of Day" is sent home requiring the student to complete the following, as an example:
On Saturday at 9 o'clock I ... complete text, add illustration.

Use other appropriate practice pages for telling and recording time.

Game

"What Time Is It Mr. Fox?" To reinforce vocabulary of telling time and the concept of different parts of the day ( a whole 24 hours).

Earth's Rotation on Axis

Read What Makes Day and Night The earth rotates on it's axis. Read pages 9-11 in The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. "What is an axis? Can we see it? Let's try the activity shown here". A knitting needle is pushed through the center of a ball or an orange. Put a dot on ball to represent Oak Park. Turn on flashlight. Rotate the ball to see how one rotation equals day and night. Encourage much discussion and all children rotating the ball. Later use a globe with the stand actually stable but the sphere slowly being rotated. Listen to the children's comments to determine whether they are making this connection.

Encouraging Mastery

Make available at writing, painting and coloring stations simple diagrams which illustrate the concepts of rotation and day & night. Those children who are developmentally ready to make connections may find these "work jobs" challenging fun!

Assessment

Teacher works with one child at a time. The child is asked to show what needs to be done with a globe and flashlight to represent one whole day on earth.

Earth's Orbit

View the video VHS623G, "Winter ( The Four Seasons)". All four videos are available. Review what we know about day/night, rotation. Use the flashlight and ball again to shine the light on our place in Oak Park. Ask, "What season is the hottest, where we feel the sun the most, where we can stay outside and play the longest?" Summer! "See, this is summer in this part of the world (point). Astronomers call this part the northern hemisphere."

Study the diagram on page 14 in the book, My First Book of Space. "Is it summer here now?" No.
"How do you know? Tell me why it's not."
"What do we call the season we're in now?"
Ask for children to move the ball and demonstrate summer and winter.

Again, make available at centers simple diagrams which illustrate the concept of seasons, in order that children may choose to write and draw about their understanding.

Reading Fiction

Read the book, I'll See You When the Moon is Full. Then review the novel, Wait Till the Moon is Full, read earlier in this unit. Again, identify characters, setting, problem, resolution. Compare, contrast these two stories. Then generate questions and thoughts about how the moon gets full, stages of the moon, how time is kept through monitoring the moon . Look for calendars that show the various shapes of the moon throughout a month. Display the "1997 Moon Calendar" from the Adler Planetarium. Create the "Waxing and Waning Moon Box" to enable children to see a concrete representation of the moon stages.

Non Fiction

Read The Moon Seems to Change.
Ask, "Is this a true story or make believe ?"

Use the NASA Coloring Book available on the Internet.

Read the book, If I Were An Astronaut. "Fiction or non fiction?"

Bridge to Concept 4: Plan a trip to the moon.

List items needed to wear and take to the moon. Use page 53 from Scholastic space unit.

Space Loft

Use paper bags to create space suits. Using broken up cardboard boxes, enclose our reading loft and design a space shuttle in which to travel to the moon. Students will name our ship and create a logo for it. Special diaries will be kept up there for students to keep track of their journey and experiences. There will also be graph paper to plot their journey. Hopefully, there will be a computer in it for the students use. It will be loaded with space programs. This "shuttle" will serve as the science center and will be available during choice time. Students may bring artifacts in for display or use in the shuttle.

Homework

"Memories of the Moon", page 42 in Scholastic space unit.

Technology

Browse the NASA WEB SITE for information about food astronauts eat in space.

Create a class book which compares and contrasts space food with earth food, example:
This is astronaut Sally eating her peas (page 1)
This is earthling Brandon eating my peas (page 2). etc.

Assessment

Ask the children to draw a picture of themselves on the moon. From this art work, brainstorm words describing the pictures. Using these words the teacher will lead the children in writing a group poem about our visit to the moon. Children can then write their own or dictate stories and/or poems about our journey.

Concept 4 will allow for discussion on controversial topics. We will expose children to some topics and allow time for exploration of others which may currently be of news and of interest to the students.

Concept 4. Should we live or vacation on the moon?

Read The Earth's Moon and What the Moon Is Like. Show the pictures and discuss the pros and cons of colonizing. Have students think about whether this could really happen.

Data Collection / Graphing
Students will interview every member of the family and any one else to find out their opinion. We will graph the results.

Set up a mini debate or a mini play between two characters if some are strongly pro or con colonization of the moon.

Should we send people into space? Discuss the cost, the effects on the universe, the dangers involved etc.. Show the video of the space shuttle explosions and talk about Christa McAuliffe.

Is there life on other planets? Children are fascinated by the idea of extra terrestrials and aliens. Take advantage of this natural curiosity by introducing this concept. Students will be anxious to talk about E.T., Martians, and aliens (especially after the movie Independence Day).

Save news paper articles about the recent discovery of tiny, ancient organisms that may have existed on Mars. See Chicago Tribune newspaper for August 8, 1996. Encourage children who feel very positive about other life forms to show us through plays, stories, poetry what they think these "aliens" would look like, what life would be like for them on their planet, what the atmosphere is like etc.

Sing and add motions to the song "One-eyed one-horned, flying Purple People Eater". Students will choose a color and create their own alien and name it. Example: "One- toed, one-nosed, jumping Yellow Beetle Eater".

Literature Connection Read Where the Wild Things Are : Could Max have visited another planet?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Asimov, Isaac The Earth's Moon

Bendick, Jeanne Moons and Rings

Berger, Melvin and Gilda Where Are the Stars During the Day?

Branley, Franklyn The Moon Seems to Change

Branley, Franklyn What Makes Day and Night

Branley, Franklyn What the Moon Is Like

Clements, Andrew Mother Earth's Counting Book

Cole, Joanna The Magic School Bus, Lost In the Solar System

Fowler, Allan So That's How the Moon Changes Shape!

Freeman, Mae and Ira The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

Gibbons, Gail Stargazers

Gregg Fowler, Susi I'll See You When the Moon Is Full

Hansen, Rosanna My First Book of Space

Hirst, Robin and Sally My Place in Space

Stevenson, Robert Louis The Moon

Moche, Dinah My First Book About Space

Nikola-Lisa, W. Night Is Coming

Ride, Sally The Third Planet

Rigby Education, Inc., (Reed Publishing Inc. 1993) Earth, Moon and Sun

Scholastic, The Earth and Sky : A First Discovery Book

Simon, Seymour Earth Our Planet In Space

Wise Brown, Margaret Wait Till The Moon Is Full

Photo credit: Nine Planets-Earth