Space Week & An Astronomy Vocabulary Freebie!

I recently visited NASA in Houston - WOW!  I spent all day there with my husband on the Level 9 Tour and we were blown away... but more on that later this week.

I found out that I will be teaching Grade 9s again in September and I am very excited.  One of my favorite units to teach in High School Science is the Grade 9 Space Exploration unit!  Day One is always a fun day because the students and I just have a Q&A day.  They write their wildest, wackiest and weirdest space questions and I spend the class answering them.  

The questions range from the simple:
What is a black hole?
What is a shooting star?

To the profound:
Do you think there are aliens?
What is beyond the Universe?

and always includes some silly ones too:
Are Mars bars really from Mars?
Why is my teacher so out of this world?  (My personal fave!)

We use up a lot of sticky notes with all of the questions they ask!  Speaking of sticky notes, check out some of my finds!

Sticky tabs from Heaven The Container Store and light bulb sticky notes from Target (only $1).  I can't wait to put these to good use!

Now for a space-themed freebie!  

Some of my students have a hard time with the Astronomy unit because there is so much new vocabulary.  So for them I made the Astronomy Terms Domino Puzzle.

 My kiddies love it!  Hopefully yours will too.  
Here is how I store my games: in a giant ziploc bag with duct tape on the bottom so I can hole punch it. 

Mrs. Brosseau's actual Binder

Solutions

The game in action

It's really fun to turn this into a competition (depending on the class) to see which student or group can finish first.  I also let the kids borrow a game to review terms before the quizzes and test.  Make life more awesome by printing on colored paper and laminate - two of those simply teaching joys.

Enjoy!

Update:
I've been adding lots more of these Domino Puzzles in my TpT shop.  Check them out! :)

Periodic Table Terms

Organelle Terms

Ecosystems Terms

Plant Parts

Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies