The Southerly Magnolia

Wonders of the Comet

· In: Kid's Activities, Lifestyle

It’s Memorial Day Weekend and we are taking advantage of all this family time! I tried to think of some fun Memorial Day type activities to do, and for some reason I kept leaning towards shooting stars. I think it was because of the stars on the American Flag, plus we have been doing a bunch of science activities this past week 🙂 After thinking about shooting stars, I then decided on comets! You don’t hear a lot about comets, so thought this would be a fun little activity to educate the kids.

My 4 year old and almost 6 year old (can’t believe she is about to be 6, geez!) were not too sure what a comet was when I told them that is what we were going to be making today. I told them that a comet was like a ball of ice, rock and dust that is shooting through outer space very fast. Comets are sometimes called ‘dirty snowballs’. The kids thought that was hilarious! They appear to have a tail due to the gases coming off of it. When a comet passes by the sun, it warms up greatly and becomes like a giant fire ball. Yikes! Comets can be as big as a small town-craziness!! Once I told the kids all about comets, they were ready to make one of their own.

This activity is easy peasy and allows for so much imagination. My kids truly loved every bit of it! The only items you need to start off with are paper (we used construction paper), tape, paper streamers, and crayons/markers. First, have your child color his/her paper (comet) how every they want. Then have your child crumble up the paper into a ball once they are done. My son just left his as is,crumbled up. My daughter taped around hers. She said it would stay in a ball shape better that way 🙂

Now time for the comet’s tail. I had my kids tear off pieces of streamer and tape them onto one end of their comet. Comet complete! Your child can run around and toss it through the air, fun activity that easy 😉 My kids wanted to do more with the comet once they finished running around with it. So, we did more! My son decided we needed to tape a straw onto the comets so they could better run around the house with it as well as imitating it flying towards me (as you can see from the pictures below haha!). The comets eventually made their way outside, flying through the air as my kids ran around in circles.

I have attached a few worksheets below for kids to continue the outer space fun when they are taking a break from flying them around the house 🙂

Space Trivia Game

Astronaut Trace Worksheet


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Comments

  3. This is so cute! I think my toddler would love it, but I am also a teacher and I know my elementary students would love it also! I love the idea of doing a craft that ties in with science and learning about the world. We will definitely be trying this!

  6. Great idea! My four year old would be totally into making this and it would be a nice break from sea creatures for me (which is her long time fave).

  8. I love the look on your daughter’s face Clair. She looks so grown up and serious. Too cute and it’s such a great activity for the kids. It’s always so much better when kids can have fun while they learn

  9. Awesome way to reinforce learning about comets. I was also fascinated by it when I was a child, and I wished I had a chance to see Haley’s comet! Let me send this link to my cousin who has a preschooler who looks up at the night sky before she goes to bed every night.

  11. This is a fun and easy project that the kids will play with for hours. It’s great that you tied it into learning about science.

  12. They look like they’re having such a blast…it literally brought a smile to me just watching their project step by step here, seeing how fun hands-on is for the kiddos! 🙂

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