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
Periodic Table of Elements - Chemistry Terms Domino Puzzle
Organelle Terms
Organelle Domino Puzzle - Plant and Animal Cells
Ecosystems Terms
Ecosystems Terms Domino Puzzle
Plant Parts
Plant Parts Domino Puzzle - Biology Puzzle

Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies


  

3 comments

  1. LOVE this activity. I downloaded it from TpT and left you some feedback there too! I see that you are a CANADIAN blogger! Yay another one joins the bunch. I would love for you to come and link up with a bunch of other Canadian bloggers at my Blog by Province. You can link your blog and download a button for your sidebar while you there. (right click on the image of your province, save URL to your desktop, then in blogger widgets, add IMAGE and put it on your sidebar) You can link back to the Blog by Province page too if you want! So excited to welcome you!
    http://teachingisagift.blogspot.ca/p/blog-by-province.html
    Sidney
    Teachingisagift

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  2. Thanks so much Sidney, for the feedback and for the opportunity to link up! I was on your blog the other day and thought mine wasn't "ready" yet to link up, but thank you for the encouragement!!
    Michelle

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  3. I love this freebie, especially using the post it notes. I found your blog through Maniac Monday :)

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