Literary Siesta {short stories for children}: early science experiments...

Space is full of resplendent mysteries which have always caught the fancy of every thinking mind.

Here are a few ideas for craft activities on 'Space':

For Age : 1-3 years : I remember having tried looking for interesting ideas to teach my children new concepts in such a manner that the concepts stay with them. The written text does play a very significant role but there is no substitute to pictorial representation and live experiments. One of the first 'science' lessons that I taught my children was the - difference between day and night and no, not by showing a revolving globe in front of a light bulb (that came much later). I simply drew this kind of picture because that is what they were observing on their own, I just provided them the nomenclature. I remember it being stuck to the refrigerator for a long period.

For Age : 3-6yrs : Concept of expanding universe

Take a deflated balloon (preferably a black or dark coloured), assume it to be our universe. Mark small dots very close together on the balloon. These small dots are clusters of galaxies. Label one of the dots as MW (for Milky Way), our galaxy. Once you start inflating the balloon, you will see that the relative distance between milky way and other galaxies keeps increasing illustrating the point that the universe is expanding and so the galaxies are moving away from each other.

For Age 6-9 yrs : Rainbow Colours

We all have seen rainbows appearing in the sky from time to time but I am sure like me, everybody gets mesmerized by the sheer beauty and grandeur of this wonderful creation on the sky, every time it becomes visible. Rainbow colours - forming the acronym VIBGYOR - Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red - are called the spectrum and these seven colours combine to make white light. What better way to show this than to make a disc having all these spectrum colours and giving it a spin. When it rotates really fast, the colours do get mixed up and reflect white light.