Space is a fun thing to talk about, but it is also a pretty abstract concept for a preschooler. We did a lot of discussing and defining. To reinforce the new vocabulary (like gravity), I incorporated it in several places in the storytime. So here's what we did:

We start out with our "letter tree," sing the alphabet song, and choose a letter for the day.

My hello song for this year is "New Way to Say Hello" by Big Jeff. You blink your eyes, wiggle your ears, and stomp your feet before deciding that we still like the old way, waving hello.

We read A Trip Into Space by Lori Haskins Houran first. It's a great easy nonfiction about going to the International Space Station. 

Since A Trip Into Space introduces the concept of gravity, we followed that book with Gravity by Jason Chin. I enjoy how the entire book is simply focused on the concept of gravity, and it is presented in a manner accessible to younger kids.

After that, I asked them if they thought we could go to space wearing just our regular clothes. "We need space clothes!" they said. So we sang "If You're Going to the Moon" which I found on Mel's Desk. I added a "get dressed" verse so we could put all three things on at once. Then we floated around in gravity-less space for a bit. To end we went back to Earth and because of gravity, we fell down.

Next we wondered if we wanted to go to space how would we get there? I proposed several traditional methods of transportation until someone shouted we need a space ship! That segued to a Four Little Rockets flannelboard from Andrea at Roving Fiddlehead.

We read a new title, The Mouse Who Ate the Moon by Petr Horáček, a funny tale of a mouse who eats a banana she thinks is part of the moon. The kids caught on right away and we had a great conversation at the end about what they thought the moon might taste like.

On the topic of the moon, we sang the song Aikendrum with the clip-art flannel set I made.

We had some extra time, so I threw in Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! I'm Off to the Moon by Dan Yaccarino. I love the puffy astronaut suit he drew!

We close our storytimes with Goodbye, Goodbye by Joanie Leeds.

If you're feeling crafty, this name rocket project would be a fun extension project.