Spacecraft & Rockets Unit Study for Middle & High School Students
A Middle to High School Level Spacecraft & Rockets Family School Unit Study for Morning Baskets and Family-style Homeschooling
In this Rockets & Spacecraft Family-style Homeschooling Unit Study your Middle & High School students will study Newton’s 3 laws of motion and force; learn about the Apollo missions; make a model rocket; and much more!
For your younger students, check out the Spacecraft & Rockets unit studies for Preschool to 2nd grade, and 3rd to 5th grade.
There are four weekly themes for this Astronomy and Astronauts unit study:
Moon and Stars: Early Learners, Upper Elementary, Middle & High School
Space and Planets: Early Learners, Upper Elementary, Middle & High School
Rockets and Spacecraft: Early Learners, Upper Elementary, Middle & High School
Astronauts and Space Shuttles: Early Learners, Upper Elementary, Middle & High School
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Spacecraft & Rockets English Language Arts
Independent Readers
Read C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra, the second book in Lewis’ space trilogy. The author of Narnia based the hero of this book, Dr. Ransom, on his friend J.R.R. Tolkien. Dr. Ransom travels to the planet Perelandra in his spacecraft where he must battle temptation and evil. Learn the fate of Dr. Ransom and this planet in the second installment of the series.
If you have younger students and would like for everyone to be on the same page, so to speak, have your middle school and high school students read A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle instead of the C.S. Lewis selection. The A Wind in the Door book is the second book in the Time Quintet series. The Time Quintet series would also be an easier read for middle schoolers than the Lewis space triology series.
Whichever of these book series you choose for independent readers, choose the other one for a family read aloud.
Grammar and Handwriting
If your family uses narration as a way to learn grammar, grab a copy of the Galaxies, Galaxies Narration worksheet from the Free Resource Library. This week’s quotes are from Gail Gibbons’ Galaxies, Galaxies.
For the narration pages, select the passage that best matches your child’s writing and spelling abilities. Then, read the passage to your student all the way through first. Then read it again, 2 or 3 words at a time, giving them time to write it down. Tell them to do their best, but not to get “caught up” in making sure it’s all spelled correctly while they are writing. They can go back when they are done to fix any spelling if they want.
When they are done, give them the original page (that you read off of) and let them “check” it and fix any spelling or punctuation mistakes. Talk to them about any spelling or punctuation rules that they used, just to help cement it in their brains. It’s really important for them to check it, not you. It seems to give them ownership of it and makes them remember the correction.
Use the Rockets & Spacecraft Copywork Worksheets in the Free Resource Library to practice grammar and handwriting. There are pages in 3 different levels for early elementary, upper elementary, and middle/high school. The early elementary and upper elementary levels come in both print and cursive.
Real-Life Writing
Have your students write a (fake) tweet using 280 characters or less in response to “Wow! The Mars Rover just..” Then, have them check their tweet using the free writing assistant on grammarly.com for spelling and grammatical errors. Finally, have them fix any errors. They can use the free Mars Rovers printables from our sister site, Homeschool Helper Online, to write their story (these printables are included in the Rockets and Spacecraft Unit Study Bundle)
Spacecraft & Rockets STEAM
Science
Exploring Space by Martin Jenkins is a comprehensive look at the history of astronomy and space exploration. Use this or a similar title, such as The Young Oxford Book of Astronomy by Simon and Jaqueline Mitton, as your main spine book for your secondary students for the whole four week unit.
This week, read Getting into Space and Coming Back to Earth in Exploring Space or The Sun and The Stars in the Young Oxford text.
Next, check out this short video from the Royal Observatory Greenwich. It explains the applications of Newton’s Laws of Motion through a scenario of 4 astronauts traveling to Mars.
Technology
Use this free resource from Civil Air Patrol: Model Rocketry. This resource contains a tremendous amount of content. Therefore, your student won’t be able to complete it all this week, but once they start it, they will probably discover an interest in the material and be self-motivated to complete it on their own over the next few weeks. If your student completes just the first two sections of this program, he or she will be able to:
- Identify historical facts about the development of rockets.
- Describe the major contributions of the four great rocket pioneers.
- Recall facts about the rocket pioneers’ lives and accomplishments.
- Design, build and launch two non-solid fuel hands-on rocket options
- Explain Newton’s three Laws of Motion.
- Describe the aerodynamics of a rocket.
- Design, build and launch two of the hands-on rocket options.
Engineering
See if your students can make a spacecraft land on a specific target with these Land a Spacecraft instructions from the Jet Propulsion Lab
Use the Identify the Spacecraft cards that come in 3 levels (found in the Rockets and Spacecraft Unit Study Bundle) to learn the names of common spacecraft. Your kids may want to have 2 copies to play a memory style game, or use them to help them build a spacecraft with LEGOs.
Learn more about the amazing engineering feat that SpaceX recently did with their “reusable” rocket boosters. Read this article and watch this Starship video from SpaceX of the first time they successfully caught the heavy booster.
Fine Arts
Draw or color a picture of the Voyager space craft while listening to the music sent into space on the Voyager. You can find the music selected to represent all of humanity (!) in this article from ClassicFM.com.
Or use these directions to draw an Orion spacecraft.
Have your students research Vincent van Gogh. They can report what they’ve learned with this notebooking page from HomeschoolHelperOnline.com. Then have them re-create Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting, adding their own artistic twist if they so desire.
Spacecraft & Rockets History
Biographies
Destination Moon: The Spiritual and Scientific Voyage of the Eighth Man to Walk on the Moon by Astronaut James Irwin is a chronological journey that combines facts, awe, and wonder of creation into an inspiring story about one of NASA’s manned rocketry programs.
Alternatively, your student could read Hidden Figures: Young Reader’s Edition by Margot Lee Shetterly. This version has more of a storyline than the “regular” version of Hidden Figures by the same author. There is also a picture book version by Shetterly that I recommend for 4th to 6th grades on the rockets and spacecraft intermediate lessons page.
Men of Science, Men of God by Henry M. Morris presents over 100 biographies of scientists who were also Christians and believed science did not contradict God’s Word. This week, read the biographies of Kepler and Brahe.
History and the Space Race
Read this article about the history of lunar exploration from Sputnik to Apollo.
Watch the Earthrise: The Story of the Photo that Changed the World video. This 30
Listen to this podcast, Giant Leaps, from NASA about the Apollo missions
Your students may also be interested in watching the movies about the Space Race from our U.S. History Through Movies Series ( Post-War American History 1945 to 1970)
Spacecraft & Rockets Devotions
If you have younger students, your family may want to do your devotions together with the devotional book Indescribable: 100 Devotions About God and Science by Louie Giglio.
These five-minute devotions are filled with wondrous facts about God’s amazing creation.
The following devotions match up nicely with this week’s rockets and spacecraft: pages
- 48-49
- 52-53
- 54-55
- 74-75
- 96-97
If your secondary student is the youngest or prefers to do his or her own devotions, use these Bible verses to write about in their journal or create SOAP notes.
- Psalm 121: 5
- Psalm 148: 1-7
- James 4:8
- 1 Hebrews 3:4
More Spacecraft & Rockets Ideas
Finally, for a family movie night, watch the movie, Hidden Figures, starring Taraji Henson. You can read a review of this movie on PluggedIn.com
Your kids may also like to try their hand at creating some 3-D paper replicas of NASA’s spacecraft.
Family schooling naturally has an overlap between learner’s abilities. That’s why morning baskets and unit studies work so well for homeschool families with more than one kiddo! Therefore, there may be activities detailed in another level that will still be of benefit to your family even if you don’t have any students working at a different level. Check them out below:
Rockets and Spacecraft: Early Learners, Upper Elementary
Be sure to follow my Pinterest board Astronomy and Astronauts for more great ideas for your Spacecraft & Rockets unit study!
Most importantly, pin one of these images so you can refer back to it during your Spacecraft & Rockets study.
