Are you ready for the solar eclipse that will be passing through the United States next month? With this wonderful event happening, I decided to create five star preschool activities for my daughter to help explain what will be happening and what we will be seeing. Use your child’s excitement about the night sky and the sun to help your child practice their numbers, creative thinking, problem-solving, and discover the concepts of light and dark!
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Science
For this activity you will need several things:
- Cardboard
- Cellophane
- Clear fishing line
- Sturdy paper
- Flashlight
For this activity, we created planets and stars out of colored cellophane. Using pieces of overlapping cellophane, we created different planets. After the planets were created, we attached them to a piece of cardboard and hung it off the edge of a window.
Turn off the lights and make it as dark as possible for this next step.
Next, give your child the flashlight and explore how the light and cellophane create colored shapes on the wall!
Explore how the shapes change when you get closer to the light and further away!
Math
One-to-one correspondence is a foundational math skill and to put it simply, it is counting. Rote counting is the ability to recite numbers in the correct order without relating them to a specific quantity. One-to-one correspondence is the ability to count objects and to be able to correctly identify the quantity of objects.
If you were to put 5 toy cars in front of your child, you ask them to count how many cars there are, and they count to 8. This is most likely rote counting rather than one-to-one correspondence.
Now, if your child touches each car and says one number per car, this is likely one-to-one correspondence.
This skill takes time to develop. Practice is a very important part of mastering any new skill, so for this activity, I have created a FREE star-counting page for your child to practice!
This one is simple. Cut out the stars. I recommend laminating them if you want to use them more than once! Use the stars with the numbers to assign some stars to a ‘constellation’. Have your child count the correct and place the correct number of stars into the constellation.
Art
This is one of my favorite activities in our star preschool lesson plan and I found it very fitting for the subject. With the sun’s light creating the light for our star, I figured I just had to do it! When creating suncatchers, I like to use cellophane. You can use tissue paper; however, I feel like the color is more vibrant when you use cellophane. You will need:
– Star Suncatchers template
– cellophane (or tissue paper)
– clear contact paper
You will need to cut out the black outline of the star for this activity. An X-acto knife makes this a piece of cake!
Place the black outline face down on the sticky part of the contact paper.
Help your child rip or cut tissue paper or cellophane. When you have small pieces of tissue paper stick the paper inside the star outline.
When your child is done, place another piece of clear contact paper on the back of the design to protect it.
Language
Story Time! Reading aloud to your child is an amazing way to help cognitive development and communication skills. By reading to your child every day you are helping them cultivate a richer vocabulary. One book that I love and had to include in my lesson plan is How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers.
This story explores a child’s wonderful imagination and journey to catch a star.
A great way to invite your child into the story is to ask them questions throughout the book. What do you think the boy will do? How would you catch a star? When you show your child that you are excited about the book, your child will be excited about the book.
Music
For the final activity in our five star preschool activities, we will be revisiting a classic! Using hand movements, we will be singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’. I love hand movements. They are a great way to help engage children in the activity and can be a wonderful way to include patterns in music and movement time.
If you missed it, check out my post on teaching patterns to preschoolers!
These simple hand movements allow your child to not only hear the song, and see your movements but also do the actions themselves. I love including these types of activities when my daughter needs to get some wiggles out.
Please let me know what you think about these star preschool activities! Did you and your child enjoy this themed activity? Let me know in the comments! Just a quick reminder, all children develop at their own unique pace. If you are concerned about developmental delays, it is best to seek advice from your child’s doctor. These activities are designed to be done with a parent. Please supervise your child while these activities are being done!
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