Science · Grade 1–2 to Grade 5–6
The night sky
Look up, find a shape, and learn its name.
Your child goes outside, looks up, and says what they found, or that it was too cloudy. On the screen they tap the stars of a shape to join it up and learn its name.
- Grade 1–2 to Grade 5–6
- 10 min
- Nothing to prepare
- On the screen
Free to sign up.
Is it a good fit?
- Ready if Your child can look at the night sky and tell you about stars, the moon or clouds.
- Too much today? The Grade 1–2 level: three things noticed, with no wrong answer, and the brightest star tapped.
- Too easy? The Grade 3–4 level: the Big Dipper drawn by tapping its seven stars, then the North Star.
What your child practises
- Looking and noticing
- Finding star shapes
- Star names in many languages
“The two front stars of the Dipper point to the North Star.”
If your child says something like this, in their own words, the idea has landed. Finishing the rounds means they took part; this is the learning.
Your part
- Nothing to prepare
- Each question has a Read it to me button
- A look up after dark first, from a window, or in the garden with you
Take it off the screen (optional)
Take the Pet's dare: find the Dipper for real tonight and say which way the handle points.
More like this
The full design
What it is
Go out, look up, find one thing, then another; the stars are suns, the band is the galaxy, the shapes have names in many languages. Skill: observe a pattern, name a thing you found, then explain why the sky turns.
How it goes
The Pet asks what the child saw → found it or too cloudy (honest, no score) → the family's own sky tonight, drawn over the season's garden → the child taps the stars of a shape, the lines join as they go → a stranger is named and sent back, never "wrong".
The Pet
Notices: "Betelgeuse: yad al-jawza, the hand of the giant." Asks: "the two front stars point the way, five gaps on." Dares: find the Dipper for real tonight and say which way the handle points.
By band
1–2: three things noticed with no wrong answer (stars, or too cloudy; the moon's shape; the sunset's side) and the brightest star tapped in the drawn sky. 3–4: the Big Dipper drawn by tapping its seven stars; from its pointers, the North Star; one shape for the season (Orion in winter, the Lion in spring, the Summer Triangle, the Great Square) with a star's name in Arabic or Greek. 5–6: the same sky two hours on (the Earth turns), why Orion is a winter shape (the Earth goes round), the Milky Way as our galaxy edge-on, Andromeda as the farthest thing you can see.
What it grows
NGSS 1-ESS1-1, 5-ESS1-2; NASA Space Place on the Dipper and the North Star.
Done, and what counts as evidence
Done = one shape found in the drawn sky. Finding it for real is the dare and the observation; a cloudy night is a night, not a miss.
What's personal
The family's country: the sky is computed for its capital, tonight at about nine; the plate is the season's garden.