I have to teach 8-10 year olds about Space! Any ideas?

My school is organizing a week long holiday camp for the poorer kids in the neighborhood. There's load of fun lessons (no real-hard thinking involved) and classes where the kids can move in and out from depending on their choice (they'll get an program choice list). It's something like a kid symposium *** conference.

The class I've been assigned to is 'Space'. I have to hold class for 5 days at 1 hour each go. I have to do a different space topic everyday, since the same students may be coming back everyday! Since I normally teach PE this is rather new to me (the Science teacher's on maternity!).

Can I get a few ideas about:
1) What topics on Space kids will be interested in?
2) What kind of games should I include?
3) I may or may not get a projector and computer. If I do what should I play on it for the kids?
4) Any other ideas?

Bear in mind they're 8-10 year olds and the lower percentile in terms of smart level, so I suppose any ideas on how 'deep' into space would be very useful!

Thanks so much!

?2014-03-06T04:40:45Z

Favorite Answer

The link below describes a "solar system play" I've staged in many classrooms. The kids really love doing it. It gets them on their feet and moving around, and they can learn a lot in the process. I've usually done it with kids a little older (grade 6), but it would work with 8-10-year-olds too.

Another great project is using toilet paper to show the scale of the solar system (google "toilet paper solar system").

?2014-03-06T10:36:39Z

I suggest getting in touch with a local astronomy club.

Our place in space.
What can we see?
Local objects, the Moon - how can we see it? What else is "close" to us? - the planets in our solar system.

?2014-03-06T10:15:35Z

Check out my u-tube science channel..some things need updating but you should be able to find plenty of stuff there....ten points please.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jomill78/featured