Constellations🌌

What a crazy winter we’re having – after 4 weeks of storms and weather warnings we finally made it out and boy were we all delighted to be reunited and back outside!!

Old and new faces came along on Saturday March 7th to play and learn all about constellations and the Scottish sky at night.

Learning at a weeSTEMs session outdoors in Balloch, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. — At the task station – making constellations

We had several different Constellation Stations:

1. The Scottish Sky at Night – where we discovered how many constellations we can see year-round and which ones are seasonal – and more importantly WHY this happens 🧐

2. Create Your Own Constellations – using chocolate and strawberry laces. Unsurprisingly this was a definite favourite! 🌟

3. You As A Constellation – using sticks and stones or cones or leaves, we mapped out our bodies to create constellations repeating them in funny shapes

4. Galaxy Playdoh – the infamous super-soft Galaxy Playdoh returned this week so that we could use beads and pipe-cleaners to design and recreate constellations. Playing with soft-mouldable dough and picking up small objects is absolutely brilliant for Fine Motor Skills – all of which assist children to be better prepared for when it comes to writing. (Also, remind me to do a separate post on how to make the best playdoh!)

5. Design Your Own Constellation – using white paint and shiny stars we experimented with shape and design to tell stories of the new constellations we’d created. Some of the ideas were fabulous! My favourite was definitely the one aptly named ‘The Best Constellation Ever’ 😊

A chocolate constellation using chocolate stars and sugar laces at one of our outdoor STEM classes — Chocolate & laces constellation

Using chocolate to learn about constellations in STEM sessions outdoors — The Big Dipper

As well as learning all about the Scottish sky at night, we had loads for little hands and bodies to explore. As always the mud-kitchen was a massive hit! Lots of imagination was used and creative writing techniques with sticks and chalk to write menus for the customers. There were tyres and big logs to precariously balance on for the bigger kids – and even the little ones had a go with support!

Playing in the mud kitchen at weeSTEMs - learning through play — Creating masterpieces in the mud-kitchen

Number rockets were out for developing fine motor skills as well as number recognition of numbers to 20.

Rocket numbers at outdoor STEM classes where children can practise their number recognition and fine-motor-skills — Number Rockets

And, as always, we had fabulous dens being created and edited and discussed throughout the morning. Fabulous use of negotiation, turn-taking, creative language, imagination, gross-motor-skills, and coordination all through play.