Lift off for World Space Week 2024

World Space Week is a UN declared celebration of space held annually from 4th to 10th October. It is the largest space event on Earth, with thousands of events held in 96 countries. These events are organized by thousands of organizations, including space agencies, aerospace companies, astronomy clubs and museums.

Every year, World Space Week Association selects a theme and in 2024 World Space Week (WSW) celebrates “Space and Climate Change”, looking at the 'transformative impact of space technology in our ongoing battle against climate change'.

Space resources in Purple Mash

There are lots of Space resources within Purple Mash and Serial Mash that you can use during World Space Week, to infinity and beyond!

Journey to The Dark Side of Elpmis

The Dark side of Elpmis is a two-part multi-tool interactive game that transports children right to the heart of the action. They become trainee astronauts on a routine training mission exploring the planet Elpmis, but when things don’t go to plan how will they react? This activity uses a mix of Purple Mash tools from 2Create a Story, 2Email and 2Publish.

More activities

Other resources within Purple Mash that focus on space include a solar system scene that students can create and write about, perhaps with information about each planet or a handy mnemonic to remember the names, or they could create a guide to the planets in the Solar System.  Students can make use of our Planets Database in 2Investigate to find out the answers to a range of questions in our Planet Quiz.  They can also practice their coding skills by sending a rocket to space using 2Code and creating a countdown to launch.  We also have a range of printable resources for Space that are perfect if you do not have access to devices.

Teaching this year's Space Week theme

There are lots of resources on Purple Mash that link well with this year's World Space Week theme: "Space and Climate Change" which includes DK Learning non-fiction texts, and a Climate Change poem template.

An extra challenge

You might want to extend your UKS2 children during this week, and you can do exactly that with Python in Pieces! Python in Pieces is where you can transition your students from block-based coding to Python with guided lessons, open-ended activities and the ability to translate block-code to Python in both directions.

There are three space-themed examples on Python in Pieces - can you challenge your students to make their own space-themed game or activity?

• Planets Simulator
• Space Shuttle
• Space Invaders

Look out for aliens

You could also fuel children’s imagination with the Aliens folder. Deep inside here there are all kinds of extra-terrestrial-themed creative writing projects, paint projects and even some database enquiries using 2Investigate. Following on from that, you can also find some more advanced space-themed database enquiry exercises in our game Data Detectives.

Learning about Space for younger learners

There is also a space topic within our online space for little learners, Mini Mash, including pictures and labels for the classroom. Alongside this are a range of paint projects and writing projects all themed around Space, and of course there are our popular Mashcams. There is so much to use during World Space Week that you can take your class' imaginations to infinity, and beyond!

Discover Space with Serial Mash

Serpents of the Nebula within our online library Serial Mash would be perfect to read during World Space Week. It tells the story of the spaceship HMS Horizon being attacked by mighty space serpents, and Tazz and Julam find they are the only ones who can help save the ship. There are 5 chapters - perfect for guided reading or whole class reading - each accompanied by a range of grammar, comprehension and writing activities.

The White Star Chronicles is a series of 4 Serial Mash books from the Fire Bolts library, designed to motivate and promote eager reading. The books follow space pirate Sam and his family who seem to have the whole galaxy after them as they travel through the universe. How will they fare against the Overlords?

Serial Mash is an ever-growing online library of guided reading books and comprehension activities aimed at children aged 5-11. A new chapter, writing activities and guided reading resources is released each week and any Serial Mash books that children read are automatically recorded in their online reading journal.

Serial Mash also contains the DK Learning library, which is full of full-sized non-fiction books including many that are perfect for World Space Week:

• Eyewitness Planets
• DK Find Out! Solar System
• Eyewitness Climate Change

Share your journey into space with us

Whatever you are doing for World Space Week we would love to see your work. You can share via Twitter, or on our Facebook page with the tag #WSW2023.