Space Theme, Literacy

Today Karen Parden is sharing another guest with us! You might remember Karen from her guest post about Elf of the Shelf! Take it away Karen!    from http://www.speechroomnews.blogspot.com/2012/06/space-unit.html

Space Unit

I have always loved space and studying about the heavens. Living in Huntsville, AL, I can’t ask for a better city for delving into all things space and astronomy. I have visited the US Space and Rocket Center many, many times and I attended Space Camp when I was in 5^thgrade.  But, that wasn’t enough for me. For one of the best summers of my life, I was aSpace Academy Counselor.

I have an abundance of resources about space exploration and astronomy, but I’ve pulled together a few for you to use in speech class. Since this unit is heavy on books, the worksheets will be brief and easy to complete in a short amount of time. Your students will be so excited to read and books and look at the pictures, you are bound to get some great speech and language opportunities!

Books I recommend:

Dogs in Space by Nancy Coffelt

I recommend this for the younger grades.  You can download my book unit that goes with this book here.

The Universe from Scholastic

I recommend this for the younger grades as well. It is a really neat book with transparent pages that overlay pictures and has wonderful facts and history in it.

Destination: Space by Seymour Simon

This book I would recommend for older grades. It is heavy on facts, history, and trivia regarding all things space.

Galaxies by Seymour Simon

Again, this book is for older grades. It is a fascinating book with beautiful pictures that would be great for descriptive language.

Stars & Planets from Discoveries books

This book is an in-between book, perhaps for 2-5 grades.  It covers constellations and planets.

For therapy, I use these books mostly for language instruction. We ask a lot of –wh question sets and use a lot of reading concepts (main idea, sequencing the story, gaining information from facts). 

Homework pages that correlate with each book:

Dogs in Space

The Universe

Destination: Space

Galaxies

Stars & Planets

Hope this information is useful for you in your speech therapy and language activities! Please visit my blog at  http://listeningtobeautifulspeech.blogspot.com/ for more resources regarding auditory-verbal therapy, speech therapy, language therapy, and technology.