We Will go to the Moon
It all started with a story we read in circle time, which one of
the children brought in called, ‘Big Shiny Spaceship’. The
children were very engaged in the story and started asking
questions about space. The children asked questions such as,
“What’s in space?”, “How do we get to space?”, “Can we go to
space?” The children were very enthusiastic to learn about
space. They were excited to become involved in activities
regarding space and the solar system. The children were very
interested in listening to the stories about “Buzz Lightyear
Space Ranger” (from Disney’s ‘Toy Story’), which further
ignited their interests.
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The next day we printed some pictures of rockets from the
internet and the solar system. The children drew their own
pictures of the solar system with chalk on black sugar paper.
We hung up all the pictures along with the ones we had printed
and started our space wall.
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A few of the children wanted to make rockets so we got some
plastic bottles from the art press and covered them with paper
and the children flew them around the room. Dexter and
Dominik especially enjoyed this activity. They also made
rockets from paper plates and tinfoil and paper wrapped
around itself to blow into and see if they could make them fly
in the garden. Jessica said “the noise sounds like the engine”.
Jessica was talking about the noise they made when they blew
into the ends.
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We brought the children down to the office to use the
computer. We watched videos of rockets launching on
youtube. The children thought it was amazing and it held their
attention for a significant period of time. Ava said to watch
‘the video with the water’, so we turned it on. It was a video
of a rocket launching from NASA beside water. Ivan gasped,
‘wow, that’s so cool’ and Ava replied, ‘ye I told ya it was cool.
You should listen to me’.
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We also looked up about stars on youtube. Some of the
children enjoyed creating stars from ice-pop sticks. These
were to hang on our space wall to add to all the things we were
learning are in space. But the children loved them so much most
of them brought their stars home.
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We were talking about astronauts after looking at pictures of
some and Ava asked what they do. We explained that
astronauts go up to space and bring satellites and investigate
different planets. We also explained about gravity and
floating. After a few minutes, Ava picked her head up and said,
‘I know why they were those things, so they don’t bang off
things when they’re floating’. Ava had a big grin and seemed
really pleased with herself that she had figured this out.
We included some baking in our space theme as Ivan
celebrated his 4th birthday. The plan was to bake the cake
and then cut it and stick it with icing to look like a rocket.
Unfortunately the cake burned! The children were
disappointed as they had been looking forward to eating their
yummy cake. Jessica suggested that Jeanette (our cook),
could make us a new cake. Luckily Jeanette had just enough
time before Ivan went home to bake a new cake. It was in the
shape of a circle but the children were happy with this as they
got to eat it.
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We made some paper mache planets. The children loved
blowing up the balloons and played with them for a while before
they sat down to paper mache them. It took a few days to
make the planets as the children waited for each layer to dry
and then add another layer each day. Some of the children
knew the names of lots of planets before we told them.
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The highlight for the children so far is their wooden rocket.
The children had already made their plastic rockets and
wanted to make another one so we split them into teams and
asked them to draw the rocket they would like.
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Dexter stretched his arms out and said ‘it has to be this big’.
The children asked for help drawing the outline of the rockets
so Carol and I drew them under strict instructions from the
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children as to how they should look. The children then filled in
windows, doors, fridges, astronauts, broccoli and carrots in
their plans! We asked the children what we would need to
construct these rockets and they suggested many, many things
including, rocket fuel, fire, glass, paper, sellotape, scissors,
paint, wood. We bought the children some wood, net, tinfoil,
screws and paintbrushes. Then Brian our handyman was asked
to come in to help us build the rocket. When he came in, the
children showed him their blueprints of the two rockets they
had designed.
Due to safety and to enable more than one child in it, the
children helped Brian design a new plan to build their rocket.
They loved watching Brian saw the wood and screw their rocket
together. They also were very careful to mind the ‘square’,
builder’s ruler, to make sure Brian could draw the lines to be
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cut out. The children were fascinated watching their rocket
come together and super excited. There were lots of
questions as the rocket was being made. ‘When will it be
ready?, “What’s that tool for”?, “Can I check if we fit in it”?,
“Will we help you Brian”?, “Can we all play in our rocket”?, “Can
I show my mammy and daddy when they collect me”?. We
explained that all the children.
Leon suggested the children
could take turns in the rocket and Dexter said, ‘ye that’s a
great idea, let’s take turns’.
The children were excited at
the prospect of having their brothers and sisters join in on the
fun, “I’m going to show my Abbie” said Zack. While Ava
replied, “Adam will really like this”. As it is a rocket the
children can step into, Ruby.S said ‘we need a door so we don’t
fall out’, Brian reminded Ruby how they had designed the
rocket with sides that the children could step out. We asked
the children how they could play safely in their rocket and not
fall out. Zack said, ‘we can step into it and take turns’,
demonstrating how he could safely step into it. The rocket
wasn’t finished so Zack stepped over the first side that Brian
had cut out. After the rocket was built, we got painter’s
paintbrushes and put paint in sand buckets for the children so
they could be painters, the children mixed some black and
white and made dark grey paint to paint their rocket. The
children negotiated and some of the children wanted to paint
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the rocket different colours. Carol gave the children all the
paint and they started mixing it in buckets. Thomas
commented that his paint was turning grey. Ava hear him and
said,’ let’s paint it grey’. Then all the children started jumping
saying, ‘yay, let’s make it grey!’ So the colour was decided and
Carol showed the children how they could simply mix grey and
white paint together to make grey and didn’t need to mix all
the colours. And so the rocket was painted.
When they were playing in the rocket Ciara asked Dexter what
game they were playing. He said, “then we do and blast off,
went to the moon, saw aliens and we went all the way back to
Junior Preschool”. The children have really enjoyed playing in
their rocket and each day create a new game for it, they can
even use the front of it as a slide!!
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Along with all the games the children were creating, we
thought we record some of the conversations and stories and
make a story for them. We suggested this to the children and
they thought it was a marvellous idea. We went on a treasure
hunt around the centre and found a Dictaphone. We sat down
in our room to make up and record the story when we
discovered there was no tape in it. So, we went on another
treasure hunt to look for the tape. Unfortunately, we were
unable to source a tape and are still hopeful of finding one!
One morning Zack and Leon were stacking bricks up behind the
rocket. Ciara asked them what they were doing and Leon said,
“we’re making it stronger”, Zack added, “so we can go to space”,
and Leon said “in case a rock attacks it”. Ciara asked Leon
what would happen if a rock attacks it and he answered, ‘they
would crash and it would crack there’ (pointing to the front of
the rocket). Ciara then asked Leon how we would fix the
rocket if it cracked and he said, ‘we would need Brian’.
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One day, Leon and Thomas were playing in the rocket and Leon
said, “Look I see a fireball”. They got out to have a look at the
imaginary fireball. Then Leon said, “Thomas, let’s go in the
space shuttle and let’s blast off. Let’s blast up to the moon”.
Ivan, Ruby.S, Zack, Thomas and Ruby. K were playing in the
rocket and putting their teddies on the front to bring them to
Mars! Zack wanted his teddy ‘new-new’ to fit and asked his
friends, “how can we get new-new to fit?” they helped him
make space and all the teddies sat on the front of the rocket
with the children in it.
We also did a moon walking activity. In this the children
picked paint and put in dishes, then they helped to stick pages
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to together to make a big strip. The children dipped their
feet in the paint and walked like astronauts on the paper. The
children loved the moon walking activity so much; they did
another with their hands when the moon was full. When it was
dry, they helped to stick blu-tack on the back of the moon
walking picture and hang it up on the wall.
The children were encouraged to explore and think through
every activity and there was a great mix of factual
information, imagination and creativity. The children showed
great excitement and interest in every activity and now start
each day by eating breakfast and then heading off to space for
a while, before landing back in junior preschool for a day of
imagination and fun.
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Throughout the time we spent learning about Space, the four
Aistear themes were included in our activities. Communicating,
Exploring and thinking, Well-being and Identity and belonging.
For example:
 Exploring and Thinking, Aim 1. Learning Goal 6. “Express
their own ideas, preferences and needs, and have these
responded to with respect and consistency”.
Communicating and Exploring and thinking were more
major themes as the children constantly talked and
planned with each other and staff the next activities
and how we would make things.

Communicatng, Aim 2, Learning goal 1. “Interact with
other children and adults by listening, discussing and
taking turns in conversation”. The children did a lot of
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exploring and thinking as they gained new information
and had to think and negotiate with each other to make
plans and decisions. Each child’s interests were taken
into consideration as we tried to plan activities to appeal
to everybody. Ruby. K particularly showed an interest in
Paper Mache and wanted to do it every day, while Zack
was more interested in rockets and wanting to help Brian
make our big rocket.

Exploring and Thinking, Aim 4, Learning goal 4, “make
decisions and take increasing responsibility for their own
learning”. Well-being was also relevant for the children
as they decided through communication what activity
would happen next and what we needed to complete each
thing.
 Well-being, Aim 4, Learning goal 1, “Show increasing
independence, and be able to make choices and
decisions”.
On Going
It has been a few weeks since we built our big rocket and the
children still play with it every day, kindly lending it to other
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rooms on occasion.
The children are so proud of their work
that if any of their pictures or plans fall off the wall they
come looking for blu-tack to hang it back up and they helped us
to write up this learning story.
The children are also keen to
show off their big rocket any visitors who come to our room!
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