Outer Space Day
Have you ever wanted to take your students on an amazing adventure? Wouldn't it be great if you could do so without even leaving the classroom? Room transformations offer the ability to create an amazing, immersive experience for your students all within the comfort of your own classroom.
One of my favorite room transformations and themed days that I have done this year was an outer space day. If you ask any of my students, they'll tell you that I always wanted to be an astronaut, but I was an inch too short. So, when trying to decide on my next room transformation, I was easily sold on the outer space idea.
Planning for the Day
The first thing you need to do for any successful room transformation is to make a plan. Once I knew that I wanted to do a space themed transformation, I needed to figure out my supplies. What could I use to easily change my room into something out of this world? I started by thinking about what comes to mind when I picture outer space. Stars, planets, rocket ships, and astronauts were the first things on my mind. But how could I create an atmosphere of stars in my classroom? I remembered the glow in the dark stars that I had when I was a child. But for those to work, it would have to be dark in the classroom. How could I make it so that it was dark enough for the stars to glow, but light enough that we could see what we were doing? That's when I got the idea to use finger lights. If you haven't seen these awesome finger lights, they come in different colors and include a small rubber band that attaches to the students fingers. They act almost like a mini personal flashlight. These would work perfectly for our space day! I wanted even more stars, though, and I wanted them all over. A simple Amazon search for outer space room decor led me to a star projector. This projector acted like a night light and would cast either stars or planets onto the ceiling and walls. The only other thing that I wanted was coverings for the tables and desks. I picked up some cheap black tablecloths that would fit my tables. With 4 simple items, I was all set.
Setup
Setup was fairly easy. Each of the tables and desk groups was covered with a black tablecloth. Glow in the dark stars were scattered about the tablecloths. I set the projector in the middle of the room so that it would project all around. That was pretty much it! Talk about an easy up, easy down room transformation! The only other thing I did to prepare for the day was to ask my students to wear anything space related. Stars, planets, NASA, astronauts...whatever they had already. I never want my students to feel like they have to go out and buy anything, but many of them have shirts or pajamas that would work.
Activities
The next thing to do was to plan how I was going to incorporate all of our different subjects into the day. We were coming up on the end of our unit on adding and subtracting decimals in math, so I wanted to use the day to review. That's when I came up with an escape room style activity. I wanted something a little different than a typical escape room, so I added a new twist. Instead of escaping, each challenge would lead the students to a set of coordinates. These coordinates would be used to find a brand new mystery planet that students would be able to name and draw.
One of our science units is about constellations, so I used this day as an introduction. Students could look up what constellations were and information about specific constellations. They could actually use this information to help them in the math activity, as well.
In reading, we were covering nonfiction text structures. I wrote different passages about each planet in different structures. I printed them on the back of a cutout of the planet they were about. Students would be able to move around the room looking for each planet, reading the passage, deciding what text structure it was organized in, and prove their answer using text evidence. I even changed up our read aloud for the day. Instead of me reading from our story, we would listen to an astronaut reading a picture book from the International Space Station.
Results
One of my favorite room transformations and themed days that I have done this year was an outer space day. If you ask any of my students, they'll tell you that I always wanted to be an astronaut, but I was an inch too short. So, when trying to decide on my next room transformation, I was easily sold on the outer space idea.
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| Welcome to outer space! |
Planning for the Day
The first thing you need to do for any successful room transformation is to make a plan. Once I knew that I wanted to do a space themed transformation, I needed to figure out my supplies. What could I use to easily change my room into something out of this world? I started by thinking about what comes to mind when I picture outer space. Stars, planets, rocket ships, and astronauts were the first things on my mind. But how could I create an atmosphere of stars in my classroom? I remembered the glow in the dark stars that I had when I was a child. But for those to work, it would have to be dark in the classroom. How could I make it so that it was dark enough for the stars to glow, but light enough that we could see what we were doing? That's when I got the idea to use finger lights. If you haven't seen these awesome finger lights, they come in different colors and include a small rubber band that attaches to the students fingers. They act almost like a mini personal flashlight. These would work perfectly for our space day! I wanted even more stars, though, and I wanted them all over. A simple Amazon search for outer space room decor led me to a star projector. This projector acted like a night light and would cast either stars or planets onto the ceiling and walls. The only other thing that I wanted was coverings for the tables and desks. I picked up some cheap black tablecloths that would fit my tables. With 4 simple items, I was all set.
Setup
Setup was fairly easy. Each of the tables and desk groups was covered with a black tablecloth. Glow in the dark stars were scattered about the tablecloths. I set the projector in the middle of the room so that it would project all around. That was pretty much it! Talk about an easy up, easy down room transformation! The only other thing I did to prepare for the day was to ask my students to wear anything space related. Stars, planets, NASA, astronauts...whatever they had already. I never want my students to feel like they have to go out and buy anything, but many of them have shirts or pajamas that would work.
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| One of my students made his own astronaut helmet for the day! How creative is he?! |
Activities
The next thing to do was to plan how I was going to incorporate all of our different subjects into the day. We were coming up on the end of our unit on adding and subtracting decimals in math, so I wanted to use the day to review. That's when I came up with an escape room style activity. I wanted something a little different than a typical escape room, so I added a new twist. Instead of escaping, each challenge would lead the students to a set of coordinates. These coordinates would be used to find a brand new mystery planet that students would be able to name and draw.
 |
| Working on the first challenge of the math activity. |
One of our science units is about constellations, so I used this day as an introduction. Students could look up what constellations were and information about specific constellations. They could actually use this information to help them in the math activity, as well.
In reading, we were covering nonfiction text structures. I wrote different passages about each planet in different structures. I printed them on the back of a cutout of the planet they were about. Students would be able to move around the room looking for each planet, reading the passage, deciding what text structure it was organized in, and prove their answer using text evidence. I even changed up our read aloud for the day. Instead of me reading from our story, we would listen to an astronaut reading a picture book from the International Space Station.
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| Nonfiction text structure activity |
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| Listening to an astronaut read from outer space |
The day was awesome! The students practiced teamwork, academic skills, and active listening. They were more engaged than I have ever seen them. We did this activity back in October, and my students still talk about it and how much they loved it. If you are looking for a fun, easy to setup room transformation, I highly recommend a space day. It really was out of this world!
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