Science Unit: The Sky and the Seasons Lessons and Activities for: Mrs. Poole’s Class

Let’s Use Our Background Knowledge! What do we already know about the sky? List the facts you already know about the sky:

Lesson One: What Can We See in the Sky? Let’s Investigate! Experiment: Observing The Sky You will need: paper and pencil

* Experiment: 1. Before going outside: Make a sky chart to record your observations. Example: The Sky Date:What I Saw:

2. Let’s go outside to observe! While we are outside, use your chart to write down the things that you see in the sky. Remember recording what you observe is very important! Science Skill: When you communicate, you can use a chart to tell about what you observe.

3. Communicate and Record! Let’s record all the things our class saw on the class chart! How many different things did we see? Would we see different things in the night sky? Find out about the night sky! Tonight take your chart home to observe the sky at night and record what you see. Tomorrow we will share what we saw and add them to our class sky chart!

Let’s Learn About: What We See in the Sky

There are many things to see in the sky in the daytime. You can see birds and clouds. You can also see airplanes and helicopters. You may even see a hot-air balloon! You see different things at night.

Observing the Sky Scientists study things in the sky. They observe stars. Stars are objects in the sky that give off light. Scientists also study the sun. Did you know that the sun is really a star? The sun is the closest star to Earth.

At night you can see many stars in the sky. They are much farther away than the sun. On many nights you can also see the moon. The moon is the brightest object in the sky at night. Did you know? Even though the moon is bright, it does not make its own light. The light we see is actually sunlight that is reflected from the moon’s surface.

On some nights you may see Mars and Venus in the sky. Mars and Venus are planets. Earth is a planet, too. These planets are made of rock. Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. Venus is the second planet from the sun. Earth is the third planet from the sun.

Talk About It! 1.What are Earth, Mars, and Venus made of ? 2. Name 2 things you can see in the day sky. 3. Name 2 things you can see in the night sky. 4. Tell your friend 1 fact that you learned today.

Way to go! You are such a smart class!