We all know the story of Chicken Little, who ran around the woods declaring, "the sky is falling!" Nevertheless, when you begin teaching astronomy to your special needs child, you needn't worry. The sky will definitely NOT fall down around you!

There may be times your special needs student has stars in her eyes when you discuss a particularly interesting subject. At other times, she may exhibit a more confused glazed-over look when you attempt to teach something more difficult, such as astronomy or space education. This can occur with any student, not just those with learning challenges.

There are, however, some sure ways to pique a learning challenged student's interest when it comes to teaching this particular subject. Here are a few suggestions, along with websites to help you out.

Hands-on learning works great for those kinesthetic learners who need to have first-hand experience with their subjects. For astronomy, try purchasing an inexpensive telescope and ask them to look through it for stars, planets, satellites, occasional meteors entering the atmosphere, the Space Station when it flies overhead, and one that can't be missed - the moon. If you missed the last eclipse, no worries. It will be back in 2007, but until then, there will be plenty of other heavenly events to view. If you are unable to afford or find a nice telescope, or if your child struggles with looking through one eyepiece, try a strong pair of binoculars instead.

Kids Astronomy is a great website to locate the night sky, complete with a free sky map. Parents can log on and enter the month and any hour between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m., and see what's up in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere (this site also has an option for people in the Southern Hemisphere). Additionally, parents can show their children the current moon phase, play a game, or choose a timely event. This month, for example, the site offers a lesson in how to find Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, and Io using only a pair of binoculars. Who or what are they? you ask. Jupiter's moons, of course!

Space.About.com is the place to find out what's going to be flying or floating overhead. This site offers a Calendar of Events with a complete list of events and anniversaries for each month. It also has a free online activity book, printable with permission.

Astronomy for Kids has information for beginners, a sky map, and a universe of information on planets, constellations, and sky wonders. It also has fun postcards to send to your friends.

A text-based website at www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/ offers more information on constellations than I've seen elsewhere, and includes the following information:

• Constellations alphabetically
• Constellations by month
• Stars alphabetically
• Stars by bright star catalog number
• Messier objects
• Milky Way Photos
• Interactive Sky Charts
• The 26 brightest stars
• The 26 nearest stars
• Constellation Abbreviation Table
• The Nine Planets
• Star of the Week
• Photos of several constellations
• Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans, which includes classical maps of the constellations
• Astronomy Picture of the Day
• What's up this month?
• Constellation pronunciation guide
• Demonstration of Moon Phases
• Calendar of Planet positions

For the visual-spatial artist in your family, try creating a mobile or poster of the solar system, using balloons, papier-mache, or Styrofoam balls on a black or dark blue background. We created a neon glow in the dark solar system one year, including glow in the dark star stickers.

For a student who likes the big picture instead of the small details, try the Montessori birthday technique: X times the Sun (X being the age of the child). Circle your student around the sun for every year of his birth, highlighting something special from each year. I tried this with my 10-year-old son for his recent double-digit birthday. He thoroughly enjoyed the concept of being the earth, holding an earth ball, while walking around his candle-holding brother, playing the sun. Not only that, he enjoyed hearing and learning about the biographical information of his early life. Of course, he couldn't remember most of his history, being so young. I also toyed with the idea of creating a "10 Years Around the Sun" poster, using photographs in a circular pattern depicting the 10 years of his life, and still may accomplish that during some of my rare time off.

For the younger child, try teaching one planet at a time. A great example can be found at Moon Theme:

This site includes activities and rhymes, including the old nursery rhyme:

I see the moon,
And the moon sees me;
God bless the moon,
And God bless me!

For the auditory learner, or one who learns best through rhymes and rhythms, take a listen to a few online tunes, in Real Audio format, by 1940's folk musician Tom Glazer . In case you're wondering, he's the songwriter who wrote the children's favorite "On Top of Spaghetti." The songs here, along with their lyrics, have such titles as:

Zoom a Little Zoom
Constellation Jig
Latitude Longitude
Milky Way
Scientific Fact

Star Child, available on the NASA website at starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov, offers information on two levels - one for the elementary/middle school child, and another for students over 14 years of age. The nice perk about this site is that it has an audio option, in which a woman actually reads the text written on the page. I think this site would be effective for students who have difficulty reading or those with vision problems.

Additionally, NASA, has some interesting flash and web videos to view, with snippets from Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and other astronauts and NASA employees. The NASA educational site, at spacelink.nasa.gov, offers a variety of educational products, from worksheets to multimedia materials, many available online, and others via snail mail for a small fee. Through the group known as Central Operation of Resources for Educators (CORE), the public has access to more than 200 videocassette, slide, and CD-ROM programs. Homeschoolers can provide students with the latest in aerospace information. Many of the videos include open and closed captioning for the hearing impaired, and/or descriptive audio for the sight impaired. Just for grins, here is a link to their expansive list of multimedia materials: The list is far too vast to print in this article, but a few titles include:

• Expanding the Universe with the Hubble Space Telescope
• Expanding the Universe: Deep Space and Planets
• Mars Global Surveyor: Surveying the Red Planet
• Earth Science
• United States Geography
• Flight Testing Newton's Laws
• Liftoff, Space Simulation Series
• America's Race to Space
• Imagine the Universe!
• History of Flight
• Living in Space
• Really Heavy Pants: A Collection of Short Videos about Spacesuits and Working in Space
• Our Home: Earth from Space
• 3, 2, 1..Liftoff: An Educator's Guide with Activities in Science, Mathematics, Technology, and Language Arts
• Amusement Park Physics With a NASA Twist
• Microgravity: A Teacher's Guide with Activities in Science, Mathematics, and Technology
• Auroras! Mysterious Lights in the Sky
• Eating and Sleeping in Space
• International Toys in Space

If you're blessed enough to live near a space center, you can also take field trips; some places even offer homeschool days. One of the most famous locations, aside from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Johnson Space Center in Texas, is Alabama's Space Camp, which has oodles of online information for closet space cadets. This option is great for those who like to learn experientially - my oldest son attended this camp when he was 10 years old, and came home with a new view on how astronauts train for missions. Another place to visit online is Space Center Houston.

For students who enjoy the historical aspect of astronomy, take a look at Nova's site, regarding the Apollo moon missions, Apollo 11 through 18. There are, of course, movies to watch that show this period of history, including Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, Space Cowboys, and others (be sure to screen these for adult content or language before viewing). For a more humorous view of space movies, check out the Bad Astronomy website. This site lists hoaxes, websites, and movies that depict irresponsible or erroneous information regarding astronomy (many of the movies are quite enjoyable, but it's good to know ahead of time what errors they include).

Next month, I'll go over a few activities, using books that I have in my library. Several inexpensive books are great resources for teaching special needs students astronomy and space science. Until then, these websites should give you a wonderful head start.

Note: While I am a believer in the big bang theory as described by Christians (God Spoke and Bang! ... It Happened), some of the astronomy sites are based in Darwinian and/or old earth theories. For more information on the creationist viewpoint, please visit Answers in Genesis , which offers many books and videos on the subject, and Apologia Science. Jay Wile has a tape entitled "Why I Am a Creationist" which will be reviewed in an upcoming issue.

Visiting the Houston Space Center
If you'd like to see what our visit to the Houston Space Center involved, please take a look at a few of our photos of our trip.