Moon Rocks

Today our Blast Off to Outer Space lesson was all about the moon and letter R. The Mother Goose Time moon lesson included making moon rocks (R is for ROCKS).  Normally whenever things are supposed to get messy I nearly panic! Me vs. 12 kids and a bowl of messy gooo. I'm pretty cool about things but I know how the class can get over excited when we do science experiments.  But, I have figured out a way to do these kinds of activities without losing my sanity or carpet in the mess. Here is how it goes down… 

We divide into 3 centers. A building center with blocks, a math center with counting bears, and lastly the science (messy) center. Each center was about 10 minutes long and gave each of the kids a chance to make some moon rocks with my supervision. Works like a charm! 

I knew that I was going to want more moon rocks for the kids than what I had sent in my yellow school bus curriculum box so I quickly whipped up a bigger batch of salt dough. It's soooo easy guys. If you want to make more at home with your kids they will think you're the best mom and dad ever! 

SALT DOUGH RECIPE

1/2 cup of salt

1/2 cup of water (you might need a bit more)

1 cup of flour

Mix it together with your hands and let the kids get busy! I had some extra gold glitter laying around from an activity last month so we just dumped it in our goo. We called it moon magic! Food coloring is also a fun idea. 

Here's the best part… You're supposed to cook the dough in the oven but since I'm all about being quick, I just microwaved the moon rocks for about 2-3 minutes! I was able to have the first group of kids rocks cooked and put into their bags while the next group of kids were making their rocks. If you wanted to be extra cool,  you could alway have the kids paint their rocks after they cool down. 

 Salt dough is so great and has so many possibilities. Can you say gingerbread men at Christmas time? Add some cinnamon and they will smell great hanging on the tree. 

 We ran out of time to decorate our bags. As usual. there wasn't enough time in the day to do all the great things I planed. But, it will just give them all something extra to do when they get home.

xoxo