Each year, I read the Texas 2×2 Award books to my kinder, 1st, and 2nd graders as part of our Battle of the Texas 2×2 Books Challenge.  (You can read more about that challenge here.)  As I plan out the order of the books to read,  I always try to look for connections I can make or activities I can do with the book.  One of the best connections I found that created so much excitement from my kids was was with the book Astronaut Scott Kelly: My Journey to the Stars.

Since this book does cover some high level concepts such as traveling into space and gravity, I knew I would need something to help my younger students understand things a little easier.  The first thing I did was find a video of a space launch that I could use to get them excited about reading the book.

Many of them said they would LOVE to be on that shuttle blasting into space.  A few, like me, mentioned they might be slightly nervous.  Then, I asked them, “Does anyone know what happens when you go into space?”  Most classes, even my kindergartners, had at least one student who knew about gravity and that you float when you’re in space.   To help explain things better for my younger kids, I showed them this video explaining gravity.

For my 2nd graders, I liked this video as it went into more detail in explaining gravity.

By this time, they were REALLY excited about reading the book and couldn’t wait to get started.  (By the way, get ready for them to have lots of giggles when they describe the special type of bathroom the astronauts use at the International Space Station!)

After we finished reading the book, I had the kids think about their own dreams.  Then, I had them visualize what steps they would need to take in order to make those dreams come true.  They filled out their Mission Rocket Ship activity, and then shared their dreams with each other.  If you would like a free copy of this activity to use with your students, just click here!

The following week, I showed them this really cool ebook site called Story Time From Space.  They were excited to know that they could actually listen to stories being read by astronauts from the International Space Station, which we had read about on their last visit!  I pointed out the book Mousetronaut, and had them look closely at who wrote the book.  When they saw it was written by Mark Kelly, Scott Kelly’s brother, they all started talking at once.  Pretty quickly they noticed that the book was read by Astronaut Scott Kelly!  When I asked if they wanted to listen to it, they all shouted “Yes!”  Needless to say, this book is soon going to be showing up on our library shelves, and I’m sure it will be checked out very quickly!

I hope you found this post useful!  Let me know if you use it with your students!