Constellations and the Night Sky

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Topics and Activities

• Constellation dot-to-dot or star-to-star worksheets
  • Elementary-level dot-to-dot
  • Elementary-level create a constellation
  • January dot-to-dot
  • May dot-to-dot
  • October dot-to-dot
• Follow the Drinking Gourd book, song, and planetarium show (see below)
• Find the Big Dipper and use it to find your way around the sky
• Cowboy Astronomer planetarium show (see below)
• How to read a star chart
  • Read a road-map looking down, but read a star chart looking up!
  • Make a red flashlight to read star charts at night
  • A star chart for every season: How to use a planisphere.
• Use a starclock to tell time by the Big Dipper.
• Night sky bingo
• How does the sky move?
  • The bowl of night

Resources

• Begin observing the phases of the Moon now to prepare for Unit 3 on the Earth, Moon and Sun. Here's how: Moon Phase Watch
• Getting started with constellations
• How were the constellations named?
• What is an asterism?
• Index to web pages for each of the 88 constellations
• When are the constellations visible?
• Star light, star bright: The Brightest Stars.
• Skylore in mythology and literature
  • Zodiac constellations
  • References: See books by Raymo and Burnham and Allen as well as our constellation web pages
  • Watch the film "Clash of the Titans."

Bibliography

Juvenile non-fiction astronomy books are shelved under j522 and j523. Books published by Scholastic are marked [S]. General astronomy books are listed on the primary group index page. See Material Goodies list for other adult or teacher recommended items.

• The Sky is Full of Stars, Franklyn M. Branley
• Find the Constellations, H. A. Rey (Curious George author)
• Glow-in-the-Dark Constellations, C. E. Thompson
• Janice VanCleave's Constellations For Every Kid
• The Glow-in-the-Dark Night Sky Book, Clint Hatchett
• Follow the Drinking Gourd, Jeanette Winter (Grades K-6)
• Space Songs, Myra Cohn
• Robert Louis Stevenson (e.g., "Escape at Bedtime" and other poems)
• The Indian upon God, W. B. Yeats
• Complete Poems, by Robert Frost
  • The Starsplitter

Planetarium shows

Cowboy Astronomer	What cowboys need to know about the stars 45 minutes, narrated by Baxter Black Created by Loch Ness Productions
	Follow the Drinking Gourd How Afro-American slaves used the Big Dipper to find their way to freedom, based on the book by the same title illustrated by Jeannette Winter. 15 minutes

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