Sunday, September 11, 2011

Constellation cans

We read this for our study on Greece and my daughter wanted to have a Pegasus constellation in her room so we made constellation cans.





We used oatmeal cans to make these.

First choose the constellation you want, my 5 year old choose the Pegasus and my 10 year old Canis Major.

Second they drew out their constellation on black paper that was cut to fit around the oatmeal container. Then they traced it in white and used dots as stars. Next draw around it to the shape the the constellation. I helped the 5 year old with this.







Third they drew the constellation on the top of the can then used a bamboo skewer to poke holes through it.



Finally take your can into a dark room and shine a flashlight through it.



I was unable to get a good picture of our stars on the wall the batteries in my flashlight was almost dead due to the children playing in a dark room for hours with their cans.


This project would make a great indoor camping craft so you could sleep under the stars! I plan to do an indoor camping unit in the Winter and will be making more of these for that project. If you make some be sure to post a link to me so I can see your projects. Happy Stargazing!



Pegasus



Canis Major

3 comments:

Dianne said...

Very cool! My kids would love this.

Lisa @ Our Country Road said...

What an awesome idea!! So easy, too!! Thank you for linking up!

Tracey M. said...

Thanks for your nice comment! I still have to look around your blog a bit more, but I loved the post where you made the canned constellations. My son loves pointing to the sky and telling me he sees Taurus the Bull or Orion's Belt (he's 3 so I'm sure he's not actually seeing them) but he loves looking up and talking about the constellations. How fun that you can bring them into your bedroom with the cans.