Teachers and homeschooling families, are you looking for a great unit to kick off the school year? Why not welcome kids back to school with an astronomy party to celebrate the recent solar eclipse? Earth science and astronomy are fascinating subjects to teach kids.
Children can enjoy stargazing anywhere and everywhere and it costs nothing. Use free printable star charts, astronomy activities and constellation patterns to teach kids about space science. Here's a galaxy
of star charts, constellation coloring pages astrology and horoscope zodiac signgs and night sky maps plus lesson plans on the eclipse, planets, meteor showers and more.
SFA
Observatory offers free printable star charts divided by region of the sky. Each constellation
is labeled with Latin name and star shape. There's a handy guide to help
stargazers orient themselves and their telescope for best viewing.
Kids
Astronomy has a free printable night
sky map and star chart that can be customized by date and time. Kids
Astronomy has entire interactive webpage for kids. Look for free printable earth science lessons, night sky activities, star charts and
astronomy games. Homeschoolers and teachers, be sure to visit the educator
resource page for free printable
astronomy coloring pages, solar system vocabulary lessons and space science worksheets.
Sky
Maps has free printable night sky maps based on latitude and hemisphere. Each month,
users are sent a new edition of the sky maps reflecting the current month's
constellations. Classroom, Jr.has printable constellation
charts for Sagittarius, Virgo, Scorpio and Libra. Check
this website for scads of free Earth Day printables.
NASA
Space Place is an interactive astronomy website for children from the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration. Kids can learn to make their own
paper-folded star finder. This will help locate major constellations for each
month. There are also free printable constellation patterns for each month. Download and print to use as
coloring pages, star patterns and star finders, too.
Athropolis
offers a collection of links to free kids' astronomy activities, simulation games, printable activities, star
names, pronunciation guides and more. Children will love Star Child with a kids-club web design and easy astronomy
activities. There are two sites--one for kids under 14 and one for those older
than 14.
Print
a star chart for each student. Encourage them to trace the constellations on
tracing paper. This will help them learn the star arrangements. They might use
the charts as connect-the-stars activities.
