'Rocket Launch' Dazzles Carrollwood Students

Prekindergarten and kindergarten classes at Independent Day School donned silver helmets, marched across the street and wound up on the moon.

The children took part in Discovery Space Day at the private school today. After studying the planets, space shuttles and astronauts in their classrooms, teachers brought the experience to life with a spongy space walk, antigravity snacks and a rocket launch.

Students started the day by dressing as astronauts and walking across Orange Grove Drive in from the primary school to Independent Day's middle school. There they watched teachers fire off a model rocket.

Pretending they were on a space mission, the students returned to their rooms, where there were stations set up for them to act out what they had learned.

"It was almost like life as an astronaut," said kindergarten teacher Marla Vildostegui. "It was like making it come to life."

Vildostegui had done the unit when she taught the 3-year-old prekindergarten class and wanted to take it with her when she moved to kindergarten. Moving up a grade level allowed her to expand on the topics introduced in the lesson. While pre-K students learn the planets' names in order, the 4-year-old kindergartners can study facts about them.

They also learned about shuttle missions, watching video of the Apollo 11 mission, seeing what the control room looked like and what it was like to walk on the moon.

This morning, they took an elevator to the school's second floor, pretending they were lifting off in the shuttle. When they got out, they put oversized car wash sponges on their feet and went into a classroom where the floor was covered in pillows and sheets.

It was like walking on the moon and dodging craters, Vildostegui said.

They ate a "space snack" -- chocolate pudding in a Ziploc bag they sucked through straws. They crafted stargazers and their own rockets and stuck their hands through accordion tubes with gloves attached to maneuver tongs and pretended they were picking up moon rocks.

When they finished, the students visited the "planetarium," a giant inflatable bubble where they laid down and watched the "Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space" overhead.

Vildostegui hopes the timing will work out so the children can watch the upcoming Discovery shuttle launch together on television or from their campus to cap off the unit.

"We're keeping our fingers crossed," she said.