Cold, clear nights equal great star watching. But sometimes the dark can be a little scary, so for the littlest explorers in our lives, a constellation night light is just the ticket.
Armed with Kite Paper, our favorite Astronomy Book, wooden picture frames, boxes and embroidery hoops, we got to work.
Start by letting the kids pick out their favorite constellations, and have fun learning about the stories behind them.
Follow that up with star drawing practice, a little bit of connect-the-dots...
. . .some easy assembling. . .
. . . and suddenly. . .
. . .the dark isn't so scary anymore.
I had a blast hanging out with my favorite little explorers the other day and we decided to make some night lights. The goal was not perfection, but learning a little and having a lot of fun. The Big Dipper was by far their favorite constellation, closely followed by Orion and Cassiopeia.
I picked up a the frames, plus a few awesome supplies from Imagine Childhood before the play date. For the night lights I went to the pre-made, plain wood section of the craft store. It took a bit of imagination, but in the end I picked a rotating multi-sided picture frame, a circular box, and a few small embroidery hoops. I let the girls pick out what they wanted to use and we went from there.
The rotating picture frame actually worked out really well. After the girls picked out constellations and drew them on the paper (with a little help), I used an exacto knife to cut out the stars, and then cut the paper to fit in the photo slots. Blue paper for the stars with a piece of white paper behind it. The last thing we did was put an LED light in the center. One light ended up being a little too dim to really show off the constellations, but I think adding another just might be the ticket.
Happy Friday!
~ Jordan
*Last time in Crafts and Activities: Holiday Catalog and a Giveaway!