Space Theme: Round 1, The Solar System (19 months old)
After three months of developing themed units entirely on my own, I was more than a little burnt out. And by burnt out, I mean sitting on the couch and crying over my laptop at midnight desperately looking for some Pinsperation. Enter Best Husband to the rescue. He volunteered to create an outer space themed unit, and despite taking a month to cobble together thanks to wonky COVID post, it has finally graced our 19 month old’s shelf.
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Books
Best Husband did a great job of selecting toddler friendly space books with a variety of features. I was worried that he would only be able to find multiple boring iterations of a list of planets, but it turns out that these authors really worked to distinguish their books from the rest of the market. They are mostly just a list of planets, but the different presentations make each one feel fresh and engaging for our Little Guy.
Love these books? Pin them for later!
NatGeo Kids Little Kids First Big Book of Space - I love that all of the images are so realistic, and that there’s a combination of large text and small text so that he can enjoy it now at 19 months, and he’ll be able to grow into the smaller text as he gets older, and ultimately be able to enjoy reading this alone.
Hello, World! Solar System, by Jill McDonald - This book has what many others on this list are lacking: a narrative. For such a fact-intensive unit it makes sense that there aren’t many narratives, but stories help toddlers stay engaged.
American Museum of Natural History: Our Solar System by Peter and Connie Roop - Little Guy loves turning the interestingly shaped pages, and I love that this layout provides another way for him to conceptualize the location of the planets in space.
Smithsonian Kids Planets and the Solar System - Like the NatGeo book, this has large text to focus on now and smaller text for him to grow into. The images in this book are gorgeous.
NatGeo Kids Little Kids First Board Book: Space - This is perfect for a toddler of any age. The text is simple, the colors are gorgeous, and everything about this book is inviting. I would absolutely buy this again if it got damaged or lost.
What’s Out There? A Book About Space by Lynn Wilson - The illustrations in this book are very inviting, but it’s a little text-heavy for a young toddler. However, I’m sure he’ll enjoy this more when he’s a little older!
How gorgeous is this natural wood planet puzzle?
Planet Puzzle
This gorgeous planet puzzle is made by Woodinout and was purchased on Etsy. I love that it’s self correcting and slightly textured due to the way the artist engraved the wood. This took a while to arrive as it’s made in Germany, but it was definitely worth the wait!
WARNING: there are several pieces that are ABSOLUTELY choking hazards. Please do not leave mouthing babies and toddlers unsupervised with this. Our 19 month old has stopped putting everything in his mouth, but he still thinks it’s a game to say “eat eat!” and then pretend to put things in his mouth. That terrifies me, so we make sure that he only has access to the puzzle pieces while supervised. Making sure all of the pieces end up in their little basket makes this easy, as I can just grab that and put it out of reach if I need to leave the room.
Lunar Landing Balance Puzzle
This balance puzzle is adorable and it even comes with its own tray! Look, I just can’t have 500 trays in different sizes to accommodate the huge variety of materials that I’m accumulating, so coming with its own tray practically sold this for us. (Am I exaggerating about 500 trays? Maybe.) I love that this can be used to balance the pieces vertically, but it can also be used to place pieces in the tray itself. I feel like that makes this accessible to a younger toddler while also engaging for an older toddler who is up for more of a challenge.
Planet Stress Balls with Nomenclature Cards
Since he’s only 19 months old, we’re only using the control cards right now.
Full disclosure: I have no idea what all of the planets look like. I’ve got Earth down, I know that Mars is red, and that Saturn has rings. Other than that, there’s no way I could tell you what they are just by looking at them. Fortunately these stress balls are all clearly labeled, and Best Husband put out the control cards for the nomenclature set he made so that I can also help our Little Guy match the balls to the cards. Today, matching looked like smashing a stress ball on top of its card, then running around the house waving the ball and screaming “YESS!!!!!!”
Here is the link to the .png files that were used to make the cards, in case you want to create any supplemental materials that match!
You can download the three part nomenclature cards here.
Tinker Totter Rockets
Since putting tiny pegs into tiny holes is a favorite around here, this Tinker Totter Rocket construction activity was a must. They’re adorable, interchangeable, and a great fine motor activity.
WARNING: more choking hazards! We didn’t put out the smallest pieces for fear of choking. Most of the larger one seem ok, but I would definitely exercise some parental discretion here. Depending on the needs of your toddler, this may be a supervised activity.
Space Sensory Bottle
We’ve actually run into some trouble here. Best Husband really wanted to recreate what I made with Little Guy’s ocean sensory bottle back in June, but the little planet figurine are just so heavy. Right now we’re playing around with the right ratios of stuff to thicken the liquid without obscuring the planets. Once we’ve nailed that down, I’ll write up a tutorial.
Alphabet Puzzle and Duplo
Little Guy has been working on this alphabet puzzle for almost two weeks and he still loves it, so it’s staying in the rotation. He’s had his Duplo legos out for a week, but he’s still playing with them every day, so we kept them out, too. Remember, following the child is more important than staying perfectly on theme.
Further Development
I love a lot about this themed unit. However, here are some things that I’d like to work on before we roll this out again:
A wider variety of textures. (there’s just so much wood)
felt solar system?
Is there a way to incorporate different fabrics?
Movement
Maybe a Mars Rover model?
Could we build a medium-ish solar system so he could really feel the orbits?
