A Year of Stellar Science – Homeschool Study of Space

We’ve finished another year of homeschooling and this year we did a deep dive into studying outer space and the history of space travel. As Charlotte Mason-style homeschoolers, I try to bring living books into my kids lives to learn from the best writers on the subject. Living books are ones that don’t talk down to the child in some folksy-dumbed down language. They are beautifully written and filled with big ideas for the mind to chew on. Living books are (usually) narrative, and they are loved by people old and young. I love reading living books with my children and they love them too. We learn so much from them, and are inspired with further questions to explore.

For the next several weeks, I will be sharing with you our booklist for our year of space study. My son loves to read and he loves space…so we actually ended up reading over 75 books on the subject this year. It’s a lot to grace you dear readers with a giant list, so I’m going to break it up into smaller lists over the next several weeks. You can look forward to living book recommendations about:

• The Sun and the Moon
• The Planets
• Earth as a Planet and space-related Earth mysteries
• Stars
• Other Cosmic Bodies
• People Who Explore Space and History of Space Travel
• Technology for Space Exploration
• Space-themed curriculum review
• Space-related fictional stories
• Encyclopedia-type books about Space
• Space-themed graphic novels
• Books for Mom: Mother Culture picks
• Space-related TV shows and movies for homeschoolers
• Space-related field trips in the Sf Bay Area
  
  As an introduction to this space-themed books series, I thought I’d share my absolute faves first. I loved these books. They changed my perspective. They taught me something new. They tugged at my hearstrings. And in the case of the Neil de Grasse Tyson book, they finally explained in a way I could understand how we can possibly know what happened in the universe 4 billion years ago. Like how do we even know that? Well now, after a year of pondering this question and reading widely in the subjects of astronomy, astrophysics, and history – I get it.

RinkydinkMum’s Top 5 Space Books to read with (or without) Children

You’re Aboard Spaceship Earth by Patricia Lauber

Until I read this book, I had a very earth-centric view of space and my spot in the cosmos. I have zero desire to go to space. None. In fact, it’s a total nightmare to me. I am not leaving this earth. Ever. But as I read this book, I realized that I never once considered that my little body already travels through space on a spaceship perfectly suited to its needs – Earth.

Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry by Neil DeGrasse Tyson with Gregory Mone

If you could go back in time (which, thanks to Neil de Grasse Tyson, I’ve learned that you *technically* can) and met me ages 5-35, you would know that I had basically no interest in space and the last book you’d catch me reading would have Astrophysics in the title. Space freaked me out! One of my favourite Charlotte Mason quotes is, “Mothers work wonders when wonders are demanded of them” again rings true here. My son is super interested in space and my daughter loves it too. And so with reluctance, I dove right in with my kids.

My son and I read Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry together and I must say, it explained a lot. How can we even know what happened a billion years ago somewhere far away from Earth? We’ve never been to those far corners of the universe. And we don’t have a time machine. How can we know what happened somewhere further than we can ever hope to get to and way before there was a single human on Earth to even observe it? Well, it takes light time to travel, right? The light we see from the sun took about 8 minutes to get to our eyes. And so, when we look out at the universe with our super powerful telescopes, we can see things because that light is reaching our eyes. But it took a long time to get to our eyes. Like sometimes millions or billions of years. If no light reached our eyes, we would see nothing. And so, what we are looking at when the image hits our eyes in the telescope took place a long time ago and we are only seeing it now because the light has finally reached us. That’s how we can see things that happened such a long time ago so far away.

I wish we knew what was happening in these far corners of the universe now.

Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon by Catherine Thimmesh

I was so lucky to get to know one of my neighbors before he died at 98 years old. He helped put Neil Armstrong on the moon! Living in Silicon Valley, I am surrounded by people who worked in satellite technology, missile & defense technology, and in research and development for the space missions. We live near NASA Ames Research Centre and near the largest wind tunnel in the world.

As a wife who supports my engineer-husband at a pretty important job in tech, I love reading about the unknown people who were behind the scenes during world-changing innovations. They were all part of the team, even if their job seemed unimportant – it freed up the capacity of the Neil Armstrongs of the world. We can’t all be astronauts (and believe me, that’s the LAST job I’d ever want #earthforever), but I’m so inspired by all the other people who worked so that the astronaut job exists. This is a book about them.

The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon by Bea Uusma Schyffert

Before this year, I had heard of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. But I had never heard of Michael Collins – the 3rd man on the Apollo 11 mission. This book is about his experience. I was so inspired by his story in this book, I wrote a whole other post about learning from the life of Michael Collins. I loved this book. I am very proud that at the end of this year, my kids know the name of the third man on the Apollo 11 mission. His name will not be forgotten. His contributions to space travel, recognized.

A Rover’s Story by Jasmine Warga

My son and I read this book together last year and I loved it so much I cried. He loved it too and has read it several times over. I didn’t think I could love a rover and a drone as characters, but I got very attached to their story. This book was the one that sparked my interest in space and got me thinking – maybe we could study space for science next year. Young or old, I highly recommend reading this middle-grade novel.

So there you have it, my top 5 Space-themed books from this year. The ones I’d like to hug, and that I’ll probably keep forever.

Stay tuned and check back for my further posts about our year exploring space as a homeschool family. Consider signing up for my mailing list so that you get each post delivered right to your inbox!

You can also check out more of my latest posts here:

• A Year of Stellar Science – Homeschool Study of Space
• Is 4th grade too early for Shakespeare? One family’s experience
• Encouraging Reading in Boys: Favorite Books for Young Readers
• Helping an Addict
• Warm, Cozy, Eclectic Bedroom

ps: This post contains Amazon-affiliate links from which I earn a small commission. Thank you for supporting my blog! It means a lot to me. I am a real person and I really have read all of these books with my family. This is not an AI generated post, but my real lived human experience.