Your children and preschoolers will enjoy these fun A is for Astronaut preschool activities to coincide with your space theme. Also, make sure you check out our Preschool Activities to find even more fine motor activities, gross motor activities, snack ideas, and fun facts to teach your class about other alphabet letters and themes.
Fine Motor Activities
- Space Sorting: Put out various glow in the dark stars, planets, comets, etc. for children to sort.
- Glow In The Dark Box: Before class, spray paint a shoe box and its lid black. Cut a small hole (about the size of a dime) in the lid. In class, set it by the glow in the dark shapes and have the children put a few shapes in at a time, cover with the lid, and see the shapes glow.
- Suspended Star System: Give the children bottles filled with Karo syrup and blue water (50% of each), and let students add in colored glitter and star confetti. Glue each lid on with hot glue (be careful not to let the students touch the bottles until cool). Then give each student their bottle to shake and observe their star system.
- Constellations: Give the preschoolers a Lite Bright, black paper, and pictures of constellations for them to recreate on the Lite Bright
Gross Motor Activities
- Create an astronaut dress up area:
- Helmets made out of milk jugs or 5 gallon ice cream buckets and foil
- Moon boots made from sponges and rubber bands to strap on feet
- Backpacks
- Air packs made out of 2-liter bottles stuck together with straps
- Create a space shuttle for dramatic play:
- Use a large box (washing machine/oven/refrigerator boxes work great!)
- Paint the box during preschool with your preschoolers, or drape white sheets over top
- Cut stars out of the top for light
- Stock the inside with an old keyboard (controls), an old cell phone, etc.
- Play with “flying saucers” outside (use a Frisbee as flying saucers)
Snack Ideas
(Encourage healthy choices, and serve allergy-free snacks to children with allergies)
- Apples
- Ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins on top) – don’t serve to those with nut allergies
- Applesauce
- Astronaut pudding (pudding in a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off…so you can eat when there is no gravity!)
- Apricots
- Avocados (you never know who might enjoy trying something new)
Fun Facts
- If you could put Saturn in water, it would float.
- Every year the moon moves about little further away from the earth.
- Once sunlight has left the sun, it takes about 8 minutes for the energy in the sunlight we see to reach earth.
YOUR TURN!
What other activities do you do when you teach A is for Astronaut preschool activities? Tell us what works in your classroom or home!
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