Sizing Them Up

Supplies needed:  clay, (food) ,pea, small olive, 2 cherry tomatoes, medium apple, onion, 2 grapefruits, 

and a small cabbage, strips of construction paper..

Before doing this project with the children make clay models to represent the size of each planet below you will find approximate sizes for your models.     Mark the strips of construction paper with each planets name.  Place the models (planets) on a table in the order the are from the sun with the name displayed below.  Tell the children that these are models of the planets and to compare sizes, you will describe each planet and have them take turns placing the correct piece of fruit above it.

Stars

Supplies needed:  White paper (draw a star on this white paper with the crayon), white crayon, thin black tempera paint.

Give each child a paintbrush a starred paper.  Let them brush the tempera paint wash over the paper and they will get a surprise.

Nine Little Planets

(Sung to: "Ten Little Indians")

One little, two little, three little planets,

Four little, five little, six little planets,

Seven little, eight little, nine little planets,

And our great big sun.

Now You See It Now You Don't

Supplies needed:  softball, basketball, flashlight.

Ask the children what makes a shadow (great time to review what you did for groundhogs day).  Turn on the flashlight and have the children make shadows on the wall.  Point out that they had to stand between the light and the wall in order to  make a shadow.  Explain the the same things happens with the moon and earth.  It's called an eclipse.  Tell the class that the softball will represent the moon, the basket ball is the earth and the flashlight is the sun.  Ask one child to hold the softball over their head and another to shine the flashlight on it.  Ask another child to hold the basketball and to sit on the floor between the sun and the moon.  Ask the "earth" to describe how the moon looks from where she is sitting.  It will look full.  Ask the "earth" to stand up so that it casts a shadow on the "moon".  Explain that this is a lunar eclipse.  An eclipse occurs when the sun, moon and earth line up in a straight line.   Tell the children that we don't have a lunar eclipse each month because the orbit of the moon around the earth is tilted, so it always moves over different parts of the earth.

Blast Off Game

Cut a large rocket shape and numerals out of felt.  Place the numerals on the rocket shape from the bottom starting with number 1.  Let the children take turn rolling dice until one of the rolls a six.  Then remove that number from the rocket. Continue passing the dice until someone rolls a five and that child will take the number 5 off, continue the game until all numbers have been removed and when the last child  rolls a 1 everyone says "Blast Off"!

Comets and Meteors

Ask the children if the ever saw a shooting star.  Encourage them to describe what they saw.  The explain that a shooting start is not really a start, it's a meteor.  Explain that meteors are pieces or rocks or metals clumps floating in space that fall into the earth's gravity.  Because it is so very far away, it looks like a star is falling.  Explain that most meteors are small and usually get completely burned up by the friction of the earth atmosphere.  The bright light we see is the meteor burning up.

Explain that the is another thing that looks similar to a meteor called a comet.  Comets are formed far out in the solar system when frozen gases and water mixes with dust and chunks of metal or rock.  When a comet orbits near the sun, heat from the sun melts the outer layers releasing dust particles that stream out behind looking like a tail.

Comet Art

Supplies needed:  foam balls (one for each child), pencils, newspaper, wide paint brushes, glitter, tinsel, art glue, and shallow bowls.

Pour the glue into the shallow bowls.  Give each child a plastic foam ball and pencil.  Demonstrate how to push the point of the pencil into the foam ball.  Have them paint their foam ball with the glue.  Now show them how to roll the glue coated balls in the glitter.  Shake the extra off onto the newspaper.  To make to comet's tail, dab some glue onto the side of the ball and help the children attach some tinsel.