Starry Sky Ideas

Moved here from a previous thread...

Original post by revshannan
I found this link online where you can get a star map of the sky for the date you log in and for a city close to where you live. I then printed out a map for the location closest to our church (NYC) for the kids to see and to talk with them about the idea of counting stars in the sky with reference to a science workshop for Abraham and Sarah. Thought this might be of help to others.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/cities.html

revshannan -:
I just wanted to write back and give an update of how we used stars in our Abraham Workshop.

1. We made a black room (put up black heavy duty paper over all the windows) so when we closed the door and turned out the lights, the room was dark, but they could see all the stars we put on the ceiling for the kids. They loved it!
2. We read the bible lesson by flashlight.
3. The kids tried to count the stars on the ceiling as a way of talking about the descendents of Abraham.
4. Our teacher (not me!) thought up the great idea of naming stars (like you can do online, buy a star for someone, etc.). Our kids wear sticker name tags that they get each week, so with the teacher's help, they each picked out a star and stuck their nametag on the ceiling next to it. This was done as a way of naming themselves as a descendent of Abraham. They loved it and we're going to name stars each week as we move through the rotation.

The feedback was very good on this rotation.

tferrey:

What we did:

1. We went to the website above and printed off a copy of the night sky above where we live.
2. Then we made a large map of the night sky. We used a large piece of black paper, made a circle about 2 ft. in diameter, and marked off eight equal sections, like pie pieces.
3. Then we marked off eight equal sections on the star map we had printed and copied the location of the stars from the small map onto the large map using glitter glue and small dabs of paint (glow-in-the-dark paint would be really effective).
4. We hung the map on the ceiling, turned off the lights (our classroom has no windows so was really dark) and shone flashlights on the "stars."
5. The kids had a great time doing this and we think it helped bring home the strength of God's promise to Abraham that he would have descendants as many as the stars in the sky.