Posted by Laurie Sullivan at 10/12/2012

Second grade students learned about the types of spacecraft that have explored Mars and are featured on Barrett’s Principal’s Reading Challenge Board. Students used red paper to represent Mars. An orbiter “flies” above the red Mars paper, thanks to a folded index card. The lander’s legs are highlighted thanks to wooden sticks. Some students used the sticks for the lander’s robotic arm, the “digger”. The rover wheels stand out due to 3D stickers to represent the rover wheels. After completing the project, students browsed through books about Mars. For the last part of the lesson, the students completed a Cloze (fill in the blank) activity related to Mars spacecraft. Photo set for K – 2 Mars Spacecraft – http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectdiscovery/sets/72157631677935283/with/8080807179/