A great introductory resource for young students exploring space.
Community Review for NASA Kids' Club
My Take
NASA Kids' Club is a great free resources for classrooms that are exploring space. It has a number of games that integrate academic skills (e.g,. letter recognition and telling time) with a space theme but not all of the games are academic. It gives students' access to real pictures and some facts about space from NASA. I wish it went more in-depth with specific information and facts about space and astronauts and was easier to navigate (e.g., it was clearer how to get around and move between activities). I wish more activities were like the storybook and included an option for any text or directions to be read aloud.
How I Use It
I used this website on the Smartboard during a unit on space so students could interact with the site via touch and play the games in small groups. The children really enjoyed completing the puzzles and trying the activities in the Club House but it was hard for my PreK students to know what to do because there are no audio directions. I also found that some activities were challenging to manipulate, such as the Rocket Builder game which requires a lot of precision with the small parts. I think the site would probably be ideal very scaffolded and supported work in PreK/K and an option for more individual work during and after 1st grade.