We also went stargazing in the bathroom--the one room without any windows. When the light was on, we talked about how that is very much like the daytime on earth when the sun is shining so bright, we cannot see the stars, even though they are still there. Then, when we turned the light off, simulating night, glow-in-the-dark constellations appeared on the bathroom ceiling. They were placed in the "relative" positions to where you might see them in the winter sky. We included The Big Dipper, Aquila, Bootes, Orion, Leo, The Serpent, Lyra, and Cassiopeia.
We did an experiment with gravity that helped the kids gain a concrete understanding of this force. I asked them to jump up and then stay there. Even though I asked them to stay up, they all came back down to the floor. We tried it a few times, but they still came down to the floor every time. We even tried it outside in the wind, but we discovered that gravity is stronger then the wind, which is why we really don't blow away in strong winds.
We learned there are about only a few people who do not live on the earth--those are the scientists on the international space station. Otherwise, all humans live on the earth.
There was a lot more to absorb as we rocketed through the universe: meteors, comets, galaxies, rockets, shuttles, satellites, and moons. It was a wonderful time of learning about what's out there.
