5..4..3..2..1..Blast off!!! Back to School Launch (Space Theme)!

BACK TO SCHOOL ALREADY?  No, we are not starting school right now.  This just happens to be what we did last year.   It was a great theme, and I wanted to share some pictures with you while I have a little bit of free time this summer.

 

The party plates, tablecloth, straws, etc. were purchased at a store, but there are SOOO many options and great things online when it comes to the "space" theme (see links below).  The placemats are black paper with designs I drew on them using a silver marker.  I then had them laminated.   The sign is one I made myself (the flames coming out of the rocket are red tissue paper).

To make the NASA shirts, I purchased some NASA patches via someone on Etsy and put them on plain white shirts.  If you buy some patches that are not iron-on, you can sew them or use fabric glue. 

 

A space-themed background greeted my kids that first school morning.  The black star clustered paper was purchased at a store (I think it was Hobby Lobby), and I believe I bought the planet cut-outs online (see link below post).

 

Of course we always like to include something yummy for breakfast.  Special cereals are a treat for our kids so these worked into our theme perfectly.

 

After breakfast, it was time to take some first day of school pictures.  I made them each a sign with their grade level printed on it (but blacked out for pics). 

The kids spent some time exploring the other areas of the house as well.  This was the moon corner (more black star paper for the space background) where I used gray party tablecloths on the floor with light paint to create the surface of the moon effect.  Speaking of the moon - we also had a "moon" snack (rice cake with cereal and sliced bananas for craters).

This seemed to be one of the more favored areas of the house for a while.  The space shuttle was painted on a white vinyl party tablecloth.  On one side was "Mission Control" and the other side acted as the inside of the shuttle with a cockpit.

 

Here's a picture of the cockpit inside our "shuttle".  I created this AND our Mission Control Center using tri-fold school project boards with control panel pictures glued on.   Control panel pictures can be purchased here for 99 cents!  I also added some other little pictures I found online.  I hot glued some toggle switches on (these and others can be purchased pretty cheaply on Amazon - see links below).  One of the best features though was adding lights (kind of hard to see but really added to the effect).  I did this by punching out small holes in the boards and sticking small poster lights through them.

 Here is a close-up of the cockpit.

 This is a picture of our Mission Control Center.

 

Of course, we had our usual treasure hunt for school supplies hidden by our homeschool elf (note that this time we caught him with them on the moon!).  

 

We ended our day with a build-your-own-planet-pizza bar.  Mmmmm!

If you are able, I recommend a visit to NASA as well.  We ended up having to travel to that area for medical reasons this past year and visited NASA while there.  It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip!

Linking up here this week:

Littles Learning Link Up

Homeschool Highlights 

Wow Me Wednesday 

Friday Favorites Linky Party 

Inspire Me Monday 

Craftastic Monday 

Made By You Monday

Modest Monday