3 stellar lesson ideas for World Space Week
World Space Week runs from 4th-10th October every year. It’s a much-loved event in the teaching calendar because it naturally lends itself to being cross-curricular and offers teachers so much choice. Want to take a purely scientific approach and ask your pupils to gather as many facts as possible about the planets? You can! Prefer to let the children’s imaginations run riot and use the theme instead to inspire some alien-based creative writing? Go for it!
In this blog, we look at a few of the different approaches you could take and how our activities can support the delivery of them. We look at:
- Instilling the facts with our Science activities
- Getting creative with our Literacy activities
- Customising your own ship with our Design activities
1. Instilling the facts with our Science activities
Busy Things’ space activities and our FREE Space topical pack are great starting points for looking at the planets of the Solar System. They’ll help the children:
- learn how the planets differ and what makes each unique,
- visualise what the Solar System looks like by modelling it themselves,
- understand what missions have taken place and what’s planned,
- understand the terminology used.
Our ‘Label the solar system‘ interactive worksheet is a must-see activity to understand what fits where. The children can then look at ‘The earth and its satellite’, then each planet in turn, to compile a fact file about each.
Make sure that you explore the theme practically too by encouraging the children to look at the night sky.
- Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can all be seen without a telescope at certain times of the year. The Time and Date website is great for indicating what to watch out for and when!
- The International Space Station can often be seen too, and you can sign up for alerts from the Spot the Station website.
2. Getting creative with our Literacy activities
If you’re exploring space with younger pupils, our activities about ‘Toys in Space’ by Mini Grey are lovely.
First off, there’s the extract from the book itself. The heart-warming story is great shared on the interactive whiteboard and is something that even the youngest of children will relate to. Have they ever lost a toy? Did they find it?
Then there’s a whole host of extension activities to choose from, including:
- A comprehension quiz
- A character profile activity
- A create a book jacket exercise
- A book review template to complete, and
- A ‘Lost’ poster to create.
It’s a great introduction to aliens too. Perhaps your pupils could create their own, thinking about the features someone from outer space should have.
For older pupils, talking with a real astronaut could really bring the subject matter to life, and definitely inspire some out-of-this-world storytelling. Our new A.I.-powered activity, Interview Neil Armstrong, provides the perfect material no matter what angle your pupils decide to take.
They can ask Neil anything space related as his knowledge is extensive and not limited to the late 1960s!
3. Customising your own ship with our Design activities
Innovation and design go hand-in-hand with space exploration. Many items we now think of as everyday were invented as a result of past missions. Consider mobile phones, for instance, freeze-dried food and CAT scans. More recently, there’s been the revolutionary James Webb Space Telescope, which is an absolute feat of engineering in itself and will enable the study of cosmic history!
Task your class to find out more about some or all of these inventions and get them thinking about what is needed for travel into space. How do astronauts breathe, eat and go to the toilet? How do they exercise, deal with weightlessness and limited space? So many questions, all of which you can use the ‘Interview Neil Armstrong’ activity above to help you with!
Your younger pupils could use our ‘Spaceships‘ picture project activity to design their own spaceship.
- How will it launch itself into the atmosphere?
- Will certain elements detach at specific times?
Your pupils could then think about the interior. With space tourism becoming a reality in the not-too-distant future, would their interior be palatial for the super-rich or would they keep it purely practical for astronaut use?
Interested in seeing more?
However you decide to approach World Space Week, we are sure that your pupils will enjoy it and learn a huge amount! We’ve included several activities in this blog and those highlighted in bold, we’ve made free to play, so please feel free to include these in your lessons.
On the look-out for more lesson inspiration? We’ve ready-made space lessons in the Lesson library in the Teacher hub that include guidance and teacher discussion points. These are all accessible, along with all our activities and games, if you log in to Busy Things, either as a subscriber or trialist.
Don’t have a login? That’s easily sorted! Simply take a 28-day free trial out here.
This blog was reviewed and updated in September 2025.