I only saw my fourth grade students this week, and it was an action-packed day. We investigated space food from the first Mercury space missions up to the current Space Station meals. There was lot of taste-testing: ask your child about liquified mac-n-cheese, freeze dried vegetables, and "space ice cream." Many people think that astronauts eat that freeze-dried ice cream in space but they do NOT. It's just a tourist delicacy that you can buy at tourist destinations. Even though astronauts don't eat it, I brought some in for the kids to try.
The students are really enjoying October Sky. This week, the characters in the book were building their first rocket, so we built one, too - well, sort of. Using balloons as the space craft and the carbon-dioxide they blew out of their mouth, a simple rocket was created. Check out the first launches and flights (be sure to note the two students who were "mission control").