Stars and Constellations - Three Lesson Mini-Unit

Stars and Constellations is a three lesson mini-unit complete with three lesson plans, 9 printable worksheets and activities, a unit quiz and a 40 slide animated power point that your students will love!

I designed all of my lessons involving Earth in Space and Time to go along with an interactive animated power point that will help engage your students with great visuals and opportunities for learning. All three of these lessons have animated power point slides to guide you through the lesson. Each lesson also includes a 5-E style lesson plan format.

Lesson One investigates the question "Why don't we see stars during the daytime?" This lesson focuses mainly on the brightness of our sun and how that affects our view of the sky. Students will learn facts about the sun as well as gain a better understanding of what a star is and the fact that we can't see other stars during the day because the Sun is too big, too bright, and too close to us to see other stars behind it.

Lesson two investigates the question "How many stars are in the sky?" Students will learn that stars are not actually pointed objects but round, hot balls of gas that give off energy. Students will learn that stars come in different sizes and shapes and move outward to briefly discuss galaxies. Students will understand that there are too many stars in the sky to count!

Lesson Three investigates the question "How can you recognize star patterns?" This lesson focuses on constellations, and shows students how to recognize the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and Orion. The power point also explains that even though the stars are spread out unevenly throughout the sky, people have noticed patterns since the beginning of time.

This three lesson mini-unit also comes with lots of printables!

- Three lesson plans (5 E Model)

- Student Foldable for vocabulary acquisition

- Three English Language Arts integrated reading prompts and comprehension questions based on the quiding question for each lesson

- Two Summary writing prompts in the shape of a five point star

- Design-A-Constellation Activity (and tell a story about your constellation)

- Career Spotlight on Astronomy: opinion questions and prompts regarding being an astronomer

- Career Spotlight fine arts activity: students will draw a picture of a star or planet that they discovered as an astronomer.

- Two page, ten question unit quiz complete with fill in the blank, multiple choice questions and a short answer question.

- Answer keys included!

Your students will love these lessons! Turn off the lights and have your kids say "3-2-1 Blastoff" and they will be transported to space for your science lessons in this unit.