10 Awesome Books About Space for Kids

Thanks to Janine over at True Aim for sharing these great books with us!  Make sure you stay to the end of the post because you will have the chance to win $25 of books for your own home library!

Look up at the night's sky. Do you feel small? It is hard to fathom just how big the universe really is. Maybe that's why children are fascinated by it? That's why I'd like to share 10 amazing books about space for your kids. They'll be so excited to tell you all of the facts they've learned. Plus, their love for reading will be reinvigorated or inspired by them!   Before you take a look at these fabulous books, check out just how small we really are in this video of a super-high resolution image of Andromeda from the Hubble space station. Make sure you watch the end!

10 Books About Space for Kids

One of my favorite things about space is how unique everything is. Each planet, every star, every asteroid has it's own unique shape, size, and attributes that make it different from every other one that we can see. What's your favorite?

Space Books for Preschoolers

1. Look Inside Space - This Lift-and-Look book captivates young minds with over 60 flaps to explore! Children as young as 3 will enjoy finding out how the moon was made, why stars shine and how we know so much about planets that are far, far away.

 2. Big Book of Stars and Planets - Open the 4 giant fold-out pages to discover the wonders of space – The beautiful pictures in this book spur on great conversations. This book is also internet referenced so you can explore even more after you're done reading!

3. On the Moon - Voyage closer to earth to see what it's like on the moon! This is a book children will want to read again and again.

4. My First Space Sticker Book - Did you know? Sticker books promote creative thinking and reasoning skills? This book combines that with learning space vocabulary for a great hands-on literacy activity!  

Space Books for Elementary

5. 100 Things to Spot in the Night's Sky - These are actually cards that show constellations and more that you can find in the sky at night. Do you have a star gazer? They'll love these cards! It's like a treasure hunt in the sky.

6. Sun, Moon, and Stars - Get more details about the most important things to earth in our universe. This book is also internet reference for more information after you're done reading.

7. Astronomy - This beginners guide talks about how people study space. You'll find information about rovers, telescopes and more in this internet referenced beginner.

8. Astronomy and Space Sticker Book - With over 130 stickers, children will learn the intricacies of space through a seek and find sticker activity!

Books About Space for Young Adults

9. The Usborne Book of Astronomy and Space - With over 96 pages, you'll learn everything you really need to know about astronomy and space. Internet links are included for more information on all subjects!

10. The Usborne Science Encyclopedia - To understand more about space, this book contains tons of information and definitions of essential scientific knowledge from a secular view point. This combined volume includes: Energy, Forces & Motion, Earth and Space, Human Body, Materials, Mixtures & Compounds, World of Plants, Animal World, and Light, Sound & Electricity.

Usborne Books Giveaway!

Use the Rafelcopter below to enter to win $25 worth of Usborne books and get several of these space picks for your library! 

Don't forget to join us for a LIVE Usborne Facebook party hosted by True Aim on Thursday at 9:30pm ET (8:30pm CT).  You will have the chance to win even more books and get great ideas for establishing a love of reading in your children!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

10 Things To Do With Your Child Before Age 10 - Ch. 11 Teaching the Trivium

This post contains an affiliate link to the book that we are going through.

Welcome to another week of the Teaching the Trivium book club!  I am so excited to be reading and discussing this book along with you.  I loved the discussion last week and would love to hear from more of you! 

This week is going to be a bit different.  See, last year I did a whole series on this chapter.  At that time I didn't even realize that it was a chapter from Teaching the Trivium, because the Bluedorn's have it on their website, Trivium Pursuit.  I took each of the "10 Things" and wrote a post on it.  Then later I wrote a second post, following up to see how I was doing at implementing that thing.

I'm going to link here to each of those posts for you to browse through as you wish.  Feel free to join the discussion by commenting on this post or on any of posts below.

---

Thanks for reading along this week!  Leave comments here on the blog post, or share about it on social media (#ClassicalMamasRead).  I'll be sharing too, so follow me on facebook, twitter, or google+ and we can chat about it there as well!  Don't forget, if you want to share your thoughts about Teaching the Trivium on your own blog, link it up below so we can all come and visit!

Next week we will be talking about chapter twelve of Teaching the Trivium.  If you haven't gotten your own copy yet, make sure you check your library or order one soon so you can be ready for next time!  Also, this is a 600+ page book, so I am only touching on certain points of each chapter.  There is so much great information that I am not covering, so if this discussion interests you, you are going to want to make sure to pick up your own copy so you can read more!

Classical Mamas Read Link-Up

Did you write about Teaching the Trivium on your blog?  Have you been reading and blogging about another book (for you, not a children's book)?  Do you have a book club going on at your blog (once again, not for a children's book)?  I'd love for you link up here so we can all be encouraged by each other and maybe find another great book to read!

I think I'm going to keep this link-up ongoing since there aren't going to be a huge number of posts and then anyone new will be able to be encouraged by the other book reading ideas and discussions.  If the number of posts gets too large, I will fix it.

Please note, all posts must be on topic (about a book you are reading) and appropriate (think family friendly).

Play and Exploration Revisited

 

This past summer I wrote a series called Early Grammar Stage Focus.  In it, I took a close look at the article 10 Things To Do With Your Child Before Age 10  from Trivium Pursuit and challenged myself to do better in the areas that they highlight.  It has been a few months, and school is in full swing, so I want to check back in and see how I have done in each of the areas.  Today's post brings me to the very last one in the series!  If you are interested in what you see, make sure to go back and read the earlier installments.

You can get this "10 things..." article plus SO much more information in the book Teaching the Trivium from the good people at Trivium Pursuit.

Today we are going to re-visit the subject of Play and Exploration.  If you didn't see the original post this past summer, or just need a refresher, take a minute to go read it first.

I wrote the first post on this topic at the end of last summer, right after my family moved into our first house (from a condo with no yard).  It was the perfect time to talk about Play and Exploration then, and it is the perfect time to revisit it right now!  Spring is here, summer is around the corner, and we are ready to get out and play!  Not that we haven't been planing and exploring all winter long, but nothing is quite as good as the summertime =)

The '10 Things' article I linked to above talks about giving your young children lots of time to play, mostly with tools they can use for creating and exploring.  It talks about traditional type toys (blocks, dress-up clothes, dolls, etc.) and how they are great because they foster creativity.  All of these types of toys and tools are so much better than the heaps of plastic, noise making, blinking toys I know we all have sitting around.  Those toys may be intriguing for a while, but they essentially do all the thinking for your child, leaving them nothing to do but stare.

Last time, I set a few goals I wanted to work towards.  They are listed here with an update as to how we have been doing:

Goals:

• Provide more tools for exploration
• Make good toys accessible in the house
• Drastically limit TV time (no more than 1/2 hour a day?)

I am happy to report that we have done well in all of these areas!  My son's birthday came shortly after that last post was written, I asked family members for things like a butterfly net, magnifying glass, bug catching jars, etc.  We got a ton of those great exploring type toys and my kids both loved them!

When we got everything settled into our new home, I wanted to make sure that good, quality toys were easily accessible for the children.  I also wanted to hide some of the bulk of the plastic, noisy type toys away =)  We kept essentially all of the books in the kids rooms, puzzles on the bookshelf along with scissors, glue, paper, stickers, etc. for creating, a game closet full of games for them to choose from, and some gender specific creative play toys in their room.  My son has lots of cars and trains along with a growing supply of legos.  My daughter has dress-up clothes, dolls, a play kitchen, and other role play type toys in her room.  We still have the rest of our toys, but they are in the basement.  The kids still go down any play with them, but not nearly as much as they play upstairs.  Most of their free time is spent building with Jenga blocks, making patterns with dominos, doing puzzles, reading books, drawing, etc.  I'm sure as the weather gets nicer, much of this free time will be spent outside.

We have been very purposeful about limiting TV/electronics time.  Both kids still really love it, but they are learning to not ask for it so much =)  Sometimes we slip back in to using those things more than we would like, but quickly get back on track because the kid's attitudes change so obviously when we do.  I honestly like to let them enjoy a TV show or a video game, but we find it usually isn't worth it except for short periods a time or two per week.

So, are you ready for summertime like we are?  How are you planning on fostering your children's creativity this summer?  Do you limit your kid's electronics time (or are mine the only ones who ask way too often?)

This post is a part of the following series:

Discipline Re-Visited

This past summer I wrote a series called Early Grammar Stage Focus.  In it, I took a close look at the article 10 Things To Do With Your Child Before Age 10  from Trivium Pursuit and challenged myself to do better in the areas that they highlight.  It is been a few months, and school is in full swing, so I want to check back in and see how I have done in each of the areas.  Every few weeks I will re-visit one of the 10 topics, so come back for more!

You can get this "10 things..." article plus SO much more information in the book Teaching the Trivium from the good people at Trivium Pursuit.

Today we are going to re-visit the subject of Discipline.  If you didn't see the original post in the summer, or just need a refresher, take a minute to go read it first.

In the original post, we talked about why discipline is so important.  If your children do not obey you, you cannot expect to get much done in the day.  Especially if you are homeschooling, where you really do need to get a ton done each day.

As I looked back on the first post about discipline, I noticed that I didn't set any goals, so I don't have anything to check back in on...bummer!

I can tell you that our form of discipline has changed a bit in the past year.  This is mostly because Trevor is nearing 5 years old and as children grow, they think differently and respond differently.  Most of the things that he gets in trouble for is not thinking of others (namely his sister) and not following instructions.  The following instructions part is not so much disobedience as it is distraction and not focusing.  We work on that every day, but not in a disciplinary way.  If there is punishment, it might be in the form of extra work (like if he gets distracted and doesn't help clean up with his sister, she gets to stop and he has to tidy up extra).

We are trying to focus a lot on virtues these days.  The past few weeks we have been talking about Humility and Love.  We printed out a few of the pictures from Blue Manor Education's free Book of Virtues and read them multiple times a day.  We talk about thinking of others ahead of ourselves, not drawing attention to ourselves, and encouraging others.  Sometimes when Trevor does not act in these ways, he has to spend time by himself in his room.  We really want to have a great atmosphere in our home and if he (or anyone!) doesn't want to act nicely and respectfully, he gets to hang out by himself for a little while until he is ready to enjoy family life again.

With Mackenzie, we are trying to be consistent with her, but honestly it is harder with the second child.  Also, she has always been a really enjoyable child, so it's easier to let something slide when she does disobey.  We do need to work on that.  There are a few areas that she has been struggling in lately, and we have been trying to be more consistent in her discipline as to stop the bad habits before they root too deep.

Last post, I talked about how important it is for the parent to be in control of themselves when administering any form of discipline.  I am happy to report that, by the grace of God, I have been doing really well in this area.  I have been trying to whisper instead of yell, be the adult instead of acting like a child in my reactions, and bestow more grace.  My husband is a wonderful example of this and I am thankful to be able to learn from him.  Obedience is very important, but even more important is being loving and extending grace.

I still have a lot to work on, but we are learning every day and hopefully we will raise wonderful children in the end =)

I'd love any advice you might have to share.  What kind of discipline methods have you used as your 'babies' started growing into older children?  How do you actively display grace while still requiring obedience?  How do you work on capturing your children's hearts so that they love to please you and discipline is less of an issue?

This post is a part of the following series:

Work and Service Re-Visited

This past summer I wrote a series called Early Grammar Stage Focus.  In it, I took a close look at the article 10 Things To Do With Your Child Before Age 10  from Trivium Pursuit and challenged myself to do better in the areas that they highlight.  It is been a few months, and school is in full swing, so I want to check back in and see how I have done in each of the areas.  Every few weeks I will re-visit one of the 10 topics, so come back for more!

You can get this "10 things..." article plus SO much more information in the book Teaching the Trivium from the good people at Trivium Pursuit.

Today we are going to re-visit the subject of Work and Service.  If you didn't see the original post in the summer, or just need a refresher, take a minute to go read it first.

In the original post, we talked about needing to instill in our children (and ourselves!) a love for working and serving.  This is a big deal in our house and we have continued to work on it since we first talked about it in the summer.  Here are the goals that I had set at that time:

Goals:

1. Be more consistent with Trevor's chores
2. Work on diligence and instilling a love of work
3. Formally start Mackenzie on chores
4. Be purposeful about service

First I'll talk about the easy successes =)  Mackenzie is a great worker and is really quite good at what she does.  It has been easy to formally include her in the chore process.  She is amazing at folding towels, so that something that she often does.  I have made a few versions of "Daily Tasks" charts this year, and a few chores are always included on that (with an extra option of earning a coin for doing another chore after the mandatory ones are done).  Honestly, if we are not home all day, we don't usually get to doing everything on our task chart and that sometimes includes the chores.  I'm really not worried about it.

Typically, each day the kids need to tidy their rooms and make their beds, clear the kitchen table (Mackenzie clears the floor and Trevor clears the top) one time, and do one other chore.  That chore rotates each day and might be something like dusting, collecting garbage, wiping bathroom walls/doors, etc.  We set the timer for 5 minutes and they try to work diligently until it goes off =)

The problem we are still working on is the diligence and desire part.  There is an awful lot of grumbling going on around here.  I try to explain that if it gets done quickly, it would only take about 10 minutes of their day total and then they would be free to do whatever!  Hopefully we will continue to get better at being good helpers.  If anyone has any ideas for training in this area, I'd love to hear them!

We are also working on the service area.  We start by trying to remember to serve each other at home.  If we are out doing something for someone else, we try to help them take the focus off of themselves and remember that we are there for the other person.  Once a month we deliver food to low income elderly folks.  It is a simple task, but is yet another opportunity to turn the children's attention off of themselves.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking about how dry and boring it all sounds!  I am definitely a black and white, straight and narrow kind of person.  I am not emotional, rarely passionate, and I don't even need much fun =)  This works fine for me, but I definitely see how I could stand to be a little different for my kids.  Trevor had often complained that doing work wasn't "fun" so he didn't want to do it.  I told him that all he had to do was make it fun by singing a song or making a game out of it.  This has helped him, but I should definitely be more proactive in making these things more fun for them.  Any ideas to help this boring ol' mom out?

Have you been working on teaching your children to be willing workers and servants?  What ideas have worked for you?  I'd love to hear any of your successes, failures, or ideas so we can all help each other!

This post is a part of the following series:

Field Trips Re-Visited

This past summer I wrote a series called Early Grammar Stage Focus.  In it, I took a close look at the article 10 Things To Do With Your Child Before Age 10  from Trivium Pursuit and challenged myself to do better in the areas that they highlight.  It is been a few months, and school is in full swing, so I want to check back in and see how I have done in each of the areas.  Every few weeks I will re-visit one of the 10 topics, so come back for more!

 You can get this "10 things..." article plus SO much more information in the book Teaching the Trivium from the good people at Trivium Pursuit.

This week we are going to talk about field trips again.  Fun!  If you missed it last time, or just need a refresher, take a minute and read my first post on the subject.

Last time we talked about how children are designed to move.  They need to explore and discover, not sit still.  (Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe that children should be able to sit still for a period of time, but that is another subject =)  The article linked to above suggests taking your kids to concerts, museums, fairs, plays, etc. and making frequent trips to the library.  Last time I made a few goals for my family, let's take a look...

Goals

1. Go on at least one field trip a month
2. Find other opportunities than the standard outings we are used to.
1. concert
2. play
3. museum
4. other?
3. Go to the library at least once a month and actually read books!

Looking back at these, I can tell you that we had mixed results.  Let's start with the good!  I am happy to report that we have been taking frequent trips to the library.  We recently moved to a new city, so we got a new library to explore!  We find books related to what we are studying and also books to read just for fun.  My son has really started enjoying books more, both reading on his own and listening to me read to him.

As for the other two goals, I'm sad to report that I have not met them.  A big part of that is, like I mentioned above, we moved to a new home this summer and along with that comes lots of 'new house' fun.  We went from a condo with no land whatsoever to a home on an acre, so most of our summer and fall was spent exploring our new land!  So while technically we did not go out on many field trips, we definitely did a lot of exploring and discovering! 

We did go out to a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch, and I'm sure something else, but hopefully this winter I will be able to be more purposeful about finding other kinds of cultural opportunities to share with my kids.  I would love to find a concert or children's play to go to this winter.  So I guess that is my new goal =)

What kinds of field trips have you taken with your kids this year?  Any favorites or recommendation? 

This post is a part of the following series:

Hearing and Listening Re-Visited

This past summer I wrote a series called Early Grammar Stage Focus.  In it, I took a close look at the article 10 Things To Do With Your Child Before Age 10  from Trivium Pursuit and challenged myself to do better in the areas that they highlight.  It is been a few months, and school is in full swing, so I want to check back in and see how I have done in each of the areas.  Each week I will re-visit one of the 10 topics, so come back next week for more!

 You can get this "10 things..." article plus SO much more information in the book Teaching the Trivium from the good people at Trivium Pursuit.

This week I am re-visiting the subject of hearing and listening.  The first time we talked about this, we discussed how reading out loud to our children is so important, especially when they are young!  The article above recommends reading out loud at least 2 hours a day to your children.  The article also talked about starting a history notebook and timeline (I'm not sure why it was under "hearing and listening.") If you want to take a look at this subject more, check out the article I linked to above, and also my first post Hearing and Listening.

At the end of our last discussion I set some goals for myself in this area.  This is what I wanted to work on...

 Goals:

1. Consciously increase read-aloud time to 2 hours
2. Not be so strict about making Trevor sit still while I read =)
3. Begin a timeline
4. Begin a history notebook

We have been very purposeful about reading out loud this year.  We start our day reading our history stories and sometimes character stories (like these stories about the Millers) during our circle time.  We will read fun picture books in the day as the kids ask for them.  Daddy reads the Bible at night during our family worship time.  This totals up to about an hour or so a day.  I really desire to do more, but honestly I just find it hard to get everything done that I want to each day =(  Do you feel that way too, or is it just me?

At the beginning of the year, I tried timing how long we would read, just to get the feel for how much we were doing.  I rarely do this anymore, but it was nice to see about how long each reading time was.  It's also hard to remember to start and stop the time each time, so it was rarely accurate!

I'm still trying to figure out goal #2.  I feel like when Trevor starting moving around or playing with a toy that his mind is gone.  I do find that reading to the kids while they are eating breakfast or lunch really helps, because they have to sit while they eat anyways, so why not listen to something while they sit there?  I'm sure he will grow in this area as he gets older, and I'll just keep trying to learn what works best for him.

We have begun our timeline and history notebooks!  I have paper taped to the wall right by where we do our school (well, where the kids sit down to do their writing).  It is low down on the wall so that they can see it and add to it easily.  We do not add to it daily, but only as we get to a major character or event in history.  At their ages, I do not want anything overwhelming, just a basic frame of reference for them.

There is more on it now, but here's what our timeline looked like after we studied Noah's Ark.

For the notebook, I just add everything that we do (that fits on a page) to a binder.  There are copywork pages, charts, drawings, etc. in the notebook.  When we do something larger, like dress up in time period clothing, I take a picture and will add it at the appropriate place in the notebook.  This is a neat book to look through and review all that you have learned through history!

So that is how we have been doing with our reading out loud!  How have you been doing?  Do you have a history notebook?  A timeline?  Any tips to share about how you do these things?

This post is a part of the following series: