We have been reading a lot of books about stars and constellations lately as we continue learning about space. While learning about stars, we have spent quite a bit of time focused on the constellations.
My favorite constellation has always been Orion, since it is usually easy for me to locate it in our night sky. I have to admit, however, that some of the constellations are a real stretch for me. Am I the only one who doesn’t see how half of the constellations actually look like what they are supposed to represent? 🙂
Nonetheless, this simple constellation craft for kids was a real hit in our homeschool.
Note: For more space-related activities, see my Space Unit Study page.
For this activity, I gathered the following materials:
- Black construction paper (I cut the sheets in half, but this isn’t required)
- Gold star stickers
- Constellation 3-part cards from Montessori for Everyone (scroll down the page and look under History and Geography)
- White chalk
- Not pictured, but another resource we used was the super cool (and free!) Star Chart app for iPhone
I should clarify that before doing this craft, we had reviewed the constellations using the 3-part cards and we had matched the constellations on the 3-part cards to ones in our constellation books and/or in our Star Chart app. Once we had done that, the real fun began!
My kids each selected one constellation to replicate using the gold star stickers. They looked carefully at the shape of the constellation and tried to replicate it on their paper.
Once they had the stars in place, they used white chalk to draw lines showing the shape of the constellation.
And finally they wrote the constellation’s name as well. Here is my son’s completed constellation craft of the Big Dipper.
And here is my daughter’s completed constellation craft of Cassiopeia.
They made several other constellations on paper before they got tired. We still had a few gold star stickers left over, so I let the kids turn me into a constellation! They placed stars to show the position of particular body parts, then even drew on my clothing using the white chalk to show the lines.
As I’m sure you can imagine, they got a real kick out of drawing on me. But it was a great way to drive home the idea that, at least in constellations, stars are used to represent particular body parts and then we use them to determine the position of the body.
More resources to learn about the stars and constellations
More posts from Gift of Curiosity about the stars and other objects in our sky:
- Books about the stars and constellations
- Phases of the moon activities
- Moon phases printables
- Solar System Montessori 3-Part Cards
- Planets Do-a-Dot Printables
You’ll find more resources for learning about the stars and constellations on my Space Unit Study page and my Space and the Solar System Pinterest board.
Follow Katie @ Gift of Curiosity’s board Unit Ideas: Space & the Solar System on Pinterest.
Awesome ideas! Especially love the drawing on mommy idea! LOL
Oh yeah, my kids got a big kick out of that too! What’s a little extra laundry when the kids are having so much fun, right? 🙂
These are fantastic resources!!!! Thank you soo much for sharing!! I love the printable cards.
Loved the idea of making constellations with stickers! Great way for kids to get a hands-on experience of an idea that’s often just taught by looking at pictures. We used glow in the dark stars instead of gold stars. Check out our other kids’ astronomy projects at https://inventorsoftomorrow.com/2017/02/28/stars-2/
What a fun astronomy unit!
What a fun learning activity. I wanted to let you know that I am featuring this in a space crafts roundup if you don’t mind.
Of course, thank you for including it!