Flight of the Navigator Part 2
Welcome Back! I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of Flight of the Navigator Learning Experiences. Haven’t seen part 1 yet? No problem! You can access it here.
Exploring the Solar System
You can watch a video about the solar system with your kids. Here is a great one from Youtube. As always, make sure to watch YouTube with your child. You never know what types of advertisements or videos may load. There is also more great information here on National Geographic Kids’ website. After exploring, encourage your child to draw a favorite planet that they learned about. My children used chalk and black paper to represent their planets. My 7 year old taped two pieces of paper together.
Here is my 4 year old’s paper:
NASA Kids’ Club
My daughter loves to wear her NASA shirt and was quite excited when she saw NASA represented in the film. NASA has a Kids Club where you can learn about space and play various games.
Fireworks Art: The Fourth of July!
This movie takes place on The Fourth of July in two different years: 1978 and 1986. The movie has a plot involving fireworks. This is a great time to remind your kids what the Fourth of July means and what people do to celebrate, since it just happened! Then they have the chance to make their very own fireworks. This is another activity where I have to give a shout-out to Ms. Erica for the inspiration.
First, cut some black construction paper or card stock into smaller pieces (I cut my card stock into fourths). Have your child draw a firework using glue (the squeeze kind works best, not the stick glue). Then sprinkle salt all over the paper so that it sticks to the glue. Shake off the excess salt and let them dry.
After they dry, shake any excess salt off again and let your child watercolor them to make bright, vibrant fireworks!
Songwriting: I Get Around
After watching this movie, my girls now request to dance to I Get Around by The Beach Boys. I challenged my 7 year old (she had a birthday this week!) to write new lyrics to the song, using its melody. In the first part of the song, the real lyrics are:
“I’m getting bugged driving up and down the same old strip”
“I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip.”
My daughter came up with her own verse. If your child is older and wants a challenge, you can encourage him or her to write a whole song. Here is her rhyme:
“It’s my birthday today and it’s a big surprise”
“I love baking and I made some pies”
Name Aliens: Art and Symmetry
I have to give a shout-out to my teaching partner of many years, Michele, for this one. This is an activity we did each year with our students. She called them Name Skeletons, but I have now turned them into Name Aliens! It fits perfectly with this movie! First, take a white piece of cardstock or thick construction paper and fold it in half. Next, write your child’s name along the bottom of the paper, taking up as much of the paper as possible, showing a contrast between tall and short letters (making the t’s and l’s very long and the a’s and o’s short).
Next, take a sharpie and trace the letters of the name, being careful to leave a bit of space above the bottom of the paper.
Then have your child cut it out. When your child opens the paper up, there will be a crazy looking, completely symmetrical alien-looking creature! Your child can decide which side is the head and which is the bottom. Then it’s time to decorate! My daughters chose paint. You could also do watercolor, markers, crayons, or colored pencils.
A Twist Involving Symmetry! If you’re using thicker paint, you can paint just one half of the “alien” and then, while the paper is still wet, fold it in half and the paint will transfer onto the other side of the paper, making the colors of the image completely symmetrical! This is a great opportunity to talk about symmetry; how there is an invisible line that goes right though the middle of this project and that the two sides are completely equal. Point out other things in the house that have perfect symmetry (something that is a circle, a rectangular table top, a piece of paper, an apple, our human bodies). Here is how my name alien looks with one half painted:
Here is how it looks once I’ve folded the painted side over onto the white side. Note: your child may need to add paint, fold it, add paint, fold it, to get the paint to really look thick on the other side, but it’s so fun to see how the image is completely reflected back. Just like Magic! Except it’s not magic; it’s math!
Life On Other Planets
One of my girls’ favorite parts of the film was when little puckmaren was dancing to I Get Around. We had to watch that part several times. I posed this question to my children: If you could make an alien creature, what would it look like? I put various materials out on the table: paper, markers, clay, felt, toilet paper tubes, paper cups, paper plates. I let them use whatever they wanted to create their creatures. After creating the creatures, they wrote about them- their creatures’ names, what they ate, what kind of habitats they lived in, how they moved around, etc. I did the creating of the creature and the writing activity on different days, but you could also do these activities together.
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My 4 year old said this about her little alien: “My name of the alien is little Hearty. It eats rotten clouds. It lives in the ocean.”
Phew! That was a lot, but we had a BLAST with this movie this week! I hope you do, too! Have a great week!
~Nicole