Space and Planets Interactive Notebook

Going on a few years of doing our Space and Planets theme and it seems like we revamp it every year to make things go a bit smoother.  This year we are going to try doing an interactive notebook where students have to assemble one fact for each of the planets after we learn about it and brainstorm facts they remember.  We are hoping this will help learning one main fact about each planet a little easier for first graders to remember as they do the final project at the end of the unit (where they match the fact to the planet as they put together a Solar System display).

If you are interested in this interactive notebook, you can find it HERE at my TPT store.

How to Use this Book:After reading your favorite read aloud book about space, stars, the sun, each planet, watching videos about space concepts, and brainstorming facts they remember, have your students piece together the fact for each space word. Then have them color the black line illustrations to match the colors of each of the planets and other pictures. The sentences included in this interactive notebook are the exact sentences that are used with my Space and Planets Cut Apart Sentences.  So if you liked those sentences, but you wanted it put together as a book, here is your thing!  I have also included optional pages on how many planets there are.  Some people like to still teach that Pluto is a "planet", but a dwarf planet.  And other people like to just say there are only 8 planets.

How to Assemble:Copy single sided or double sided and staple on the left hand size. Copy the words that will be glued in the book separately. There are three on each page. Only hand out the sentence your students need.

Answer Key:Solar System: There are nine planets in the solar system.
Solar System: There are eight planets in the solar system.
Sun: The nine planets orbit around the sun.
Sun: The eightplanets orbit around the sun.
Star: A constellation is a group of stars that make a shape.
Mercury: Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.
Venus: Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system.
Earth: Earth is the only planet that animals can live.
Mars: Mars is called the red planet.
Jupiter: Jupiter has a giant red spot that is a storm.
Saturn: Saturn’s rings are made of rock and ice.
Uranus: Uranus spins around on its side.
Neptune: Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun.
Pluto: Pluto is called a dwarf planet.
Earth’s Moon: An astronaut has been to the moon.
Comet: A comet is made of ice, dust, and rock.
Astronaut: An astronaut wears a special suit to travel in space.
Asteroid: Asteroids are rocks that orbit the sun.

Space and Planets Review Packet

We will be finishing up our Space and Planets theme this week after taking time to learn many different facts about each planet.  Friday of this week, students will be making their own solar system mural.  They have to put the planets in order and place the fact next to each planet on the mural.  They have lots of fun with it.
To help get ready for this, I created this Space and Planets Review Packet:

You can find this HERE at my TPT store.

Space and Planets Writing Retell Sheets, 3 options available:

• Students write sentences to match the pictures
• Students write the missing planet name in the shape box font.--Student traces the planet name within the sentence.

Planets Fact Cards: BW and Color Options

• Print, laminate, and cut out to use as pocket chart cards or review for learning 1 fact about each planet.
• Use the black and white version to create a mini-book.

Label the Vocabulary Word:

• Students match the picture with the word from the word wall.

Space "I Have Who Has" Game

This must be my favorite time of year to teach Social Studies and Science because my brain goes crazy as I'm teaching it coming up with news things to make!  Last night I put together an "I Have Who Has" game for the Space theme we just got done with.  I guess I'll use it next year or possibly as a filler for a review if we have down time...Which makes me think about making one for our current Continents and Ocean theme.

You can find this HERE at my TPT store. It includes all the words include in my Space and Planets Word Wall card set that I also have available at my store.

Space Word Wall Vocabulary Cards

 

I noticed someone on the TPT site requested space vocabulary cards and thought, "I could probably whip some of those up."  We do already have some word wall cards in our classroom that we found on the K-3 Teachers Resources site, but our school is switching reading/language arts series and PROBABLY going away from D'Nealian.  So making new ones would probably be good anyway. 

Our students LOVE using the word wall pocket chart during their writing.  It helps give them "ideas" to write about and gives them a chance to SEE new words.  Our hope is that it will increase their reading vocabulary.  We noticed this year on our Gates word decoding tests, that words that we included on our word wall pocket chart for theme, student got right!  (Example:  During our Weather theme we had the word card for "lightning" and as a whole students actually got that question correct more than they have in the past.)  So if the focus is on vocabulary to increase comprehension, making these little word wall cards is way worth it!  And I love doing it anyway...

You can purchase this at our TPT store HERE.  The Space Doodles clip art used to created these word wall cards is also available for purchase:

Clip Art by Carrie on Teacher's Notebook: HERE (immediate download)

Clip Art by Carrie on Etsy: HERE (zip file emailed to you by Carrie)

Clip Art by Carrie at our TPT store: HERE (immediate download)

We would love your feedback...and let us know if you have any requests!

"My Space Book: What I Learned"

This year we created a "My Planets Book" that our first graders used during journal writing to record what they learned about each planet.  After listening to different books about the planets, we had them write the facts they remembered and also draw a picture of each planet.  We wrote the facts down on sticky notes and displayed them on a planets anchor chart.  Sometimes we had them write their own facts independently using the fact journal sheets first and other times we had them generate the facts together as a class first and the teacher wrote them on the sticky notes.

Here is a picture of the pretty basic page we whipped up during our Space unit.  The kids drew a picture of the planets at the bottom and wrote on the top.  (All the planets pretty much looked alike...so knew I wanted to revamp so they took a little more time with coloring it how the planet actually looked.)

I decided to use my Space Doodles clip art and revamp it into a "My Space Book:  What I Learned" so that students have a place to record everything they learned throughout the unit.  This year, we kept the fact generating to just the planets, but next year we hope to discuss and respond about other things they learned about space.  My son came home with his "Planets Book" and had to read to me all the things he learned about in Christine's class.  So...I thought...if he loved it so much, why not extend their learning a bit and dig a little deeper into other space concepts?

Here is the updated version in our "My Space Book".  Now students will focus on writing the facts and then color the planet to match its colors they see on the covers of the planets read aloud books we use.

The "My Space Book:  What I Learned" book includes facts sheets for:  Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Sun, moon, star, galaxy, universe, astronaut, astronomer, solar system, asteroid, and comet.

If you'd like to purchase this book you can find it at our TPT store HERE.

Here is the "My Space Book:  What I Learned" book:

If you'd like to puchase the Space Doodles clip art you can find it at our TPT store, Carrie's Etsy shop, or Clip Art by Carrie on Teacher's Notebook.

Here is the cover of the Pebble Plus book "Mercury" that we read aloud to students. It is an awesome series of books that teaches about each planet in "first grade language".

States of Matter Doodles and FREEBIE "beaker"

This clip art package was a special request by our new friend, Christina, over at Second Grade Sugar and Spice blog.  She wanted some images for a unit she wants to make on the States of Matter:  Solids, Liquids, and Gases...and this is what I came up with for her:

Here is a freebie for all you scientists out there of the first image I drew in this doodle package:

You can purchase this clip art doodle package at my Etsy Shop:  Clip Art by Carrie.
You can also find them at our TPT store HERE.
Or you can find them on Teacher's Notebook:  Clip Art by Carrie on Teacher's Notebook.


Please read my terms of use at the bottom of this blog page for using my art.

Thanks so much for stopping in to our blog!  And for those of you who have become our follower, we are so blessed that you are following us!

~~Carrie

Weather Words

This year we have made our theme bulletin board interactive and its wonderful! Students utilize our word wall pocket chart all the time during their independent writing. It has really helped those kids who can't seem to think of something to write about. I always encourage kids to write first before they go get the word from the pocket chart. "Try first and check later!" I always hated using a word wall because of this reason...kids always copied and never really tried on their own.  But I love using the theme word wall pocket chart.
Today we introduced a lot of weather "vocabulary" using our Weather word wall pocket chart. Below is a picture of our Weather word wall.  The weather vocabulary cards came from a site called K-3 Teacher Resources (www.k-3teacherresources.com).  There are tons of freebies on that site, but you also need to pay the one year subscription fee.  We did it for a year and got a lot of neat stuff!

I had the kids sitting on the carpet in front of the pocket chart and read aloud the Weather Dictionary that I created a few years ago.  Some of the weather words I included in the book:  snow, rain, tornado, hurricane, thunder, lightning.  Then we went back to our tables and read the dictionary as a class doing a choral read.  The dictionary had the vocabulary word missing from the text, so they had to fill in the missing words on each page as we read.  Whenever we read together and fill in the missing words, I find myself saying:  "Fingers are for reading!  Pencils are for writing!" 

You can download a FREE copy of the weather dictionary HERE through Google Docs.  A lot of the clip art is DJ Inkers:  www.djinkers.com.  Here's the cover page and the "wind" page:

We had about 7 minutes left of theme time, so that's when we did the Weather Riddles that I created yesterday.  The kids LOVED the riddles activity.  They were such good listeners...and they all knew when it was their turn to come up and read the answer to the riddle.  (See my previous post about Weather Riddles cards.)