Have children create glow-in-the-dark stars in arts and crafts. Provide students with different-sized, star-shaped stencils, white card stock and pencils. Instruct children to trace the stencils onto the card stock and cut them out. After cutting out the star shapes, instruct children to paint them with glow-in-the-dark paint. Once the stars have dried, punch holes in them and string a filament through the holes. Suspend the stars from the ceiling in your classroom, turn off the lights and have children sit back and admire their creations.
Help children learn number recognition with a star-themed math activity. On a sheet of paper, draw five large stars and print a number, one through five, in each star. Provide children with star-shaped stickers and instruct them to place an amount of stickers on each star that corresponds to the numbers written on them. Another math-related idea is to cut out the stars and have children arrange them in sequential order.
Children pretend they are space explorers hunting for stars with this game. Cut out star shapes and hide them around the room. Divide your class into groups of three or four students and send them off to look for the stars. After an allotted period of time, have them reassemble and count how many stars each group found; the group that found the most stars wins the game. Alternatively, you don't want to play a competitive game, have children work together to find all of the stars. After finding the stars, have them assemble and together count the total number of stars that have been found.
Present children with different star-themed books, nursery rhymes and finger plays to promote reading and language development. Read aloud star-themed picture books, such as "Our Stars" by Annie Rockwell, "Stars! Stars! Stars!" by Bob Barner and "The Sun is My Favorite Star" by Frank Asch. Sing songs, recite nursery rhymes and preform finger plays that relate to stars; "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "Star Light, Star Bright" and "Hey, Diddle, Diddle," for example.