Destination Space is an engaging and motivating reading project where students travel around learning about different space related topics and stories. They get to utilise the many New Zealand School Journals that schools have access to. 18 activities, 3 curriculum levels (2-4), 46 Journal stories or articles.
For every story or article students choose a reading task that will earn them “fuel cell points.” The better they do the tasks the more points the teacher can give them.
At the end of the project, students can be given the opportunity to use their fuel points to pay for a special reward. E.g. Movie day.
This project can last as long as you want. It will take a couple of weeks to get it working, so take the time to set it up well. In the past, I have even run this project over a whole term.
Activities Included
Draw your ultimate spaceship
Article Tasks
4 Main Points - Use evidence to share what you have learnt
Compare Planets - Venn Diagram
Planet Fact Sheet - Create a cool fact sheet
Word Find - Use topical words to create a word find
Social Media - Keep the missions social media posts up to date
Word Alphabet - Find a topic word for every letter of the alphabet
Glossary - From your article create a glossary
Summary - Summarise an article to send to the Prime Minister
Story Tasks
Draw the Setting - Draw the setting on the astronaut's helmet visor
Alien App - Create a classified app about aliens
Story Comic Strip - From what you know from the story, create a comic strip
Finding Evidence - Find evidence to back up your thoughts about the story
The Sequel - Every good story has a sequel. Write one.
Character Notes - Describe a character
Five Fingers - Retell the story using the five finger method
Message Home - Send a message home describing what you have read about.
How to run the project.
There are a few ways you can run this project.
1.Use it as an independent project where students work through at their own pace (Preferred)
2.Whole class, where the teacher sets the task and activity for everyone at the same time.
3.Run it with your existing differentiated or mixed ability groups, where you choose the story and response you want them to do.
