When we say we’re stargazers, we’re not talking about watching Entertainment Tonight on television. We mean the REAL stars, the ones that God created in the night sky. To me, those stars are so much more amazing than the ones created by short-lived celebrity.
On December 13, my 10-year-old son and I looked up at the stars and watched them fall during the Geminids meteor shower. As a more experiential learner, I think Hunter learned more about the stars last night from watching them shoot across the sky than he ever did from just reading a book about them.
More information on the Geminids is available at Science @ NASA's The Geminid Meteor Shower page. But you won’t get to see it again for a while. The best bet is to search online for newsletters that will remind you of upcoming celestial events. The best site for this is at SpaceWeather.com.
There are a few methods that might prove helpful for special needs students learning about astronomy. Aside from going outside and looking up whenever possible, my son has found a great deal of comfort in sleeping in an inside tent or teepee, with stick-up glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. If a parent is able, these stars can be placed into the shapes of constellations. Since Hunter is named after the constellation Orion, we certainly have that one on the ceiling!
For the space cadets in your family who don’t want to wait for the sky to fall, bookstores offer a couple of items that are most helpful for inside stargazing: Seeing Stars by Charles Hobson. This small gift box, perfect for Christmas, includes a silver flashlight, a small explanatory book, and several cards with the outlines of popular constellations on them. The cards have star-shaped holes in them, corresponding to the stars in the sky creating the constellation. The cards flip over, showing the reverse diagram, which is the way the Greek astronomers depicted them. These cards are simple enough for a child to use them in the discovery method, holding them up and shining the flashlight through them. I find that using a wall (or inside of a tent/teepee) works better for illumination and clarity.
Some of the cards include:
Orion the Hunter (our favorite)
Ursa Major and Minor (bear constellations, also known as the Big and Little Dippers)
Cetus the Sea Monster
Andromeda the Princess
Pegasus the Winged Horse
Perseus the Hero
Cassiopeia the Queen
Cepheus the King
The night sky with all constellations in their corresponding patterns
The explanatory book includes an explanation of these constellations, particularly as they pertain to ancient Greek mythology, and how they are related to one another in the sky and through myths.
Why the Stars Have Attracted Us
How to Use the Cards
The Andromeda Constellations
The Andromeda Myth (with all the players)
How to Locate the Andromeda Constellations
Want to Learn More?
This small gift set corresponds to an out of print limited edition book, entitled Andromeda Imagined, which I was unable to obtain in time for this article.
Another set, which seems to be more suited to those of the Charlotte Mason persuasion, is Urania’s Mirror. It is probably more suitable for older children or for parents who want to teach their younger children in greater detail. Barnes and Noble Books reprinted this set, and it doesn’t seem to be available through the Internet. You might try, however, going into a local Barnes and Noble to find this amazing gift set. The box includes a reproduction of Urania’s Mirror, which was first printed in 1832. It includes a book, a planisphere, and a more comprehensive set of cards. No flashlight is provided.
As the foreword says, the constellation cards included in this kit “were created by an anonymous young English lady, and were accompanied by a guide book written by Jehoshaphat Aspin, the author of many works on history and geography.” The book includes information on both northern and southern constellations, along with zodiacal constellations, along with their corresponding fables. It is written in more mature language, and includes the actual Latin labels for each constellation. The planisphere allows you to see what is in the sky at a certain date and time, at latitude 42 degrees north. This set of 32 cards is more detailed, and, in addition to including the constellations mentioned in the previous book includes some of the following constellations:
Aquarius, Piscis Australis and Ballon Aerostatique
Canis Major Lepus, Columba Noachi and Cela Sculptoris
Hercules and Corona Borealis
Lynx and Telescopium Herschilii
Aurica
Camelopardalis, Tarandus and Custos Messium
Draco and Ursa Minor
LaCerta, Cygnus, Lyra, Vulpecula and Anser
Other ideas for the homeschooling star child include:
- Creating a scaled-down solar system (we created one using glow-in-the dark paint, Styrofoam balls, and black coreboard)
- Purchasing an inside planetarium, such as the ones available at the Discovery Store or our own Homeschool Resource Center.
- Using activities from the Challenger center:
A few sites that have great ideas, which may need to be scaled back for special needs children, include:
Be forewarned that some of these sites require membership, and do assume the lack of intelligent design in the creation of the universe. If you teach from a creationist standpoint, you may have to augment the lesson plans.
The Montessori method believes in teaching elementary children something they call Cosmic Education. Parent-Child Press (click Cosmic Education) offers some useful Montessori-based astronomy books, including the teacher’s manual I Wonder What’s Out There? written by Joanne DeFilipp Alex with Aline D. Wolf. The contents includes:
Information on teaching children to observe the familiar
Star activities in the classroom
The Sun
Our Solar System
Planet Earth
The Moon-A Traveler in Space
Rockets
Living In Space
Using Your Community
Being Part of the Universe
Appendix with comprehensive materials, including a vast list of children’s books that complement the manual
Another book entitled Children of the Universe, Cosmic Education in the Montessori Elementary Classroom, written by Michael and D’Neal Duffy, is also available at Parent Child Press. It is more comprehensive and written for a parent who is more interested in the Montessori method, and explains why Cosmic Education is taught at the elementary level. It is actually a more detailed version of the previously mentioned book, and is written from a classroom perspective.
For younger children, or for the older child who is at a more basic reading level, Parent Child Press offers small spiral-bound corresponding readers, entitled the Cosmic Wonder Series, to go along with the curriculum (but can be used separately):
How Big is the Milky Way?
I Look “Out” at the Stars
I Live in the Universe
I Know What Gravity Does
I Know the Sun Does Not “Set”
I Travel on Planet Earth
Asking questions such as “People live all around Planet Earth, but no one falls off. Why?” The answer, gravity, is explained in simple terms, with text on the left side of the booklet and simple hand-drawn illustrations on the right side. I found these books to be especially helpful with my dyslexic son, who understands concepts more from looking at the drawings than reading the text. My personal favorite is How Big is The Milky Way?, a book that explains billions of stars by comparing stars to golden beads that are linked together, going “about the distance from Planet Earth to the Moon and back again.”
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