Solar System Mobile

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Its World Space week and I have joined a Space blog hop. If you have space based posts please link them below. I'm linking up my latest craft project:

My friends are breeding and as a result we are having many baby showers.  I made my last pregnant friend a Gobbi Mobile so with a new baby shower looming I set to work. I decided to be slightly more adventurous this time having (or so I thought) mastered the art of making felt balls. I decided to make a Solar System mobile. So with my trusts Ladybird Mini - Mad About Space book as a reference I set about making a stack of little planets. 

This was as much a stash busting exercise as it was a philanthropic gesture to a dear chum, so rather than just make one set, I decided to make two. 

It didn't take me long to realise that larger balls are significantly harder to make with any degree of success than small ones. In fact I wasn't great at the small ones either. I have since discovered Curly Birds handy tutorial, which had I read before embarking on this project would have saved me some time needle felting the lumps of wool into decent spheres post wet felting. Any how despite my best efforts to the contrary I seemed to manage successfully to make 18 planets.

Saturn and Uranus required rings for which I used thick jewellery wire. I heated up a poker and plunged it into the depth of the relevant planets. The in poked the wire ends into the hole and sealed them in with my glue gun. There are probably daintier ways to do it but it did the job.

Finally I sewed embroidery thread through each planet and strung them in order around the inner circle of an 8" Cross Stitch Embroidery Hoop  (the wooden ones are very cheap - unless you are my preggy friend in which case I spent a fortune, honest!).

I was super excited when I gave the mobile to my friend and as soon as she took it out of the box she recognised it as a solar system. I kept the other one for Goblin.

This blog hop has been brought to you by the letters S - P - A - C - E and the following blogs:

Rainy Day Mum, Nurturestore, Toddler Approved, Here Comes the Girls, 3 Dinosaurs, Mummy Mummy Mum, Science Sparks, Living Montessori Now, One Perfect Day, K C Edventures, Taming the Goblin

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Curiosity in Space

(picture source http://hubblesite.org/)

This week saw something historic happen - The NASA Mars Rover aptly named Curiosity, landed on Mars and sent back the first pictures of the surface. I love that we continue to explore the depths of our universe and we will continue to grow in knowledge of it. Our kids will know so much more about what is out there than we will. So lets spark their curiosity for space while they are still young. 

To help ignite that interest I have rounded up some space based posts from fellow bloggers. There is truly something for everyone with a wide range of activities and resources for all age groups.

Arts and craft

We have craft activities for toddlers and preschool with:

1. Boy Mama, Teacher Mama - Number Play and Rocket Painting
2. Red Ted Art - Hand print Aliens
3. Taming the Goblin - Hubble telescope inspired art

And activities for slightly older kids:

4. Red Ted Art - Space invader Hama Beads 
5. Make and Takes - Rocket notebook
6. The Pleasantest Thing - Asterios belt art 

We even have some mummy crafts:

7. One Perfect Day - Space cakes and party ideas (not that type of space cakes!)
8. Taming the Goblin - Rainbow Window Star

Modelling

I love solar system models and we have two to choose from:

9. At Home with Ali - Small paper mache solar system
10. Red Ted Art - Big paper mache solar system

And if rockets and spaceships are more your thing we have plenty of them too:

11.  Momma's Fun World - Loo Roll Rocket
12. Nurture Store -  Junk Rockets
13. FunFamilyCrafts (at Ganz world) - Flying saucer
14. JDaniel4's Mom - Cup rocket

Sensory play

For children who like hands-on touchy feely play, we have it all here:

15. Taming the Goblin - Space sensory tray
16. Nurture store - Water bead Space play
17. Growing a Jeweled Rose - Blacklight sensory Outer Space Bath
18. The Imagination Tree - Galaxy playdough 

Books and resources

We have story books with a space theme and star charts to help identify the night sky:

19. The Imagination Tree - Space themed books
20. KcEdventures - Star Gazing Resources
21. The Wise Owl Factory - Space themed book based Worksheets

And one that would be absolutely brilliant for this weeks Mars news:
22. Royal Baloo - Writing a story based on the news

Science 

There are some great experiments to try out at:

23. Science Sparks - Bottle Rocket
24. The Pleasantest Thing - Transit of Venus Activity
25. Science Sparks - Expanding Universe
26. Creekside Learning - 5 Astronomy experiments
27. Science Sparks - Making Craters
28. Kids Activities blog - Balloon Rocket

Imaginary play 

Or if your child is like Goblin and enjoys imaginary play you will enjoy the post from:

29. Childhood Beckons - Small world playdough solar system
30. And Then All I Thought About was You - Imaginary Aliens in the Garden
31. Raising little Rhodies - Navigating a spaceship through an asteroid cloud
32. Sun Hats and Wellie Boots - Small world space station

If you aren't all spaced out by now here are some more Gallactic round ups with even more activities for you to check out

33. Red Ted Art - Space Crafts and Ideas to Inspire
34. Rainy Day Mum - 5-4-3-2-1 Blast off for World Space Week 2011
35. Living Montessori Now - Montessori Inspired Astronomy Activities

If like me you are more of a visual type you can shop for your activities by pictures at Rainy Day Mum's Space Pinterest board

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Kids Co-op link up (#7 for me)

 
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Its that time of the week. If you have been up to something fun please link up so we can all see. If you are feeling in need of inspiration then take a look at some of the fab ideas linked up already.
Here is what I will be linking up this week:

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Moonscape

(Goblin is 30 months)

Goblin and I have fallen into a routine which, on my days with him, involves coming down stairs at 6am and watching two hours of Dora the Explorer while I defrost my brain with strong coffee. In a nod towards "Screen Free Week" I decided to try and change things up by ensuring Goblin had an activity to do as soon as he came down stairs in the morning. So I made him a moonscape. 

I took a bag of split peas and a bag of beans and sprayed them silver - this took a lot longer than I thought it would because I kept having to rake them over to find the ones that hadn't got sprayed. I stuck them under the extractor fan on our cooker all day so they didn't gas us (I learnt my lesson after my experience with our robot costume).

In the mean time I made a moon buggy - Dumper truck covered in tin foil. Not beautiful but was probably the thing Goblin liked the best!

I made astronauts - I printed out photos of me, Hublet and Goblin and stuck them on toilet rolls. You probably can't see from the picture but I made Hublet out of a kitchen roll so he is taller and Goblin is shorter.

I made a rocket - plastic cup with craft foam top and wings and duct tape windows. It opens so that Goblin can fill it with moon rocks or toilet roll astronauts.

 And I made moon martians out of playdough, googley eyes and pipecleaners.

I also sprinkled some magnetic M letters amongst the moon rocks (couldn't resist a teeny bit of educational stuff - M is for moon, martian and mummy astronaut). I left the tray out over night so that when Goblin came down he'd find it.

And he did find it. We played with the rocket launching astronauts and counting down "3, 2, 1 blast off". I forgot to mention I'd also printed off 1 - 3 on cards so I could hold them up as we counted down - another sneaky bit of learning.

Goblin loved it and got all his vehicles so he could load them up with moon rocks. Through out the day he revisited the tray and did a bit more scooping. He also fed some moon rocks to the martians. 

And so to the linky!

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