Off in Space
One of the delightful parts of third grade is the curriculum in science asks you to introduce the solar system.
So we had a guest speaker-my daughter.
Sylvia reinforced lessons we had started on the planets-with my usual repertoire of The Magic School Bus and every You Tube I could find-and there are wonderful ones.
It was fun to here the children ask her if SHE was Ms. Frizzle or a scientist and be able to say, “Yes.”
So the children cut out, colored, discussed and made these neighborhood solar systems, many displaying they do remember basics we’ve been learning, lots of the kids said spontaneously, “This is the best day ever,” or, “We love to learn like this,”
meaning making models, assembling, thinking where things belonged.
Monday we are making this,
I found this on-line, it’s genius and I don’t know who to credit.
I’m just struggling to get my girls to volunteer to help me make those wonderful Earth cupcakes.
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I found several sites that look good for my students.
Windows To The Universe
Mrs. Bunsey’s Solar System Links
A Solar System Link’s to Pics Page
I just love this one….A Trip Through Our Solar System
An Internet Scavenger Hunt
And I liked Kid’s Astronomy.com
So these sites will be our links for next week. As we talk about the phases of the moon, and generally expand our awareness of our place in space.
Nice work
Wow! Does this bring back memories. We helped our son in third or fourth grade (20 years ago) with a solar system model. We used styrofoam spheres that my son painted and mounted in a card board box. Scale of course is always a problem with models for the solar system. I made up a fancy little chart on the computer (about 4 computers ago) stating what the true size of the sun and the various planets, and the size of the orbits based on the diameter of the Earth. I am going by memory here but if I remember right our styrofoam Earth was 1.5″ in diameter. Our styrofoam Sun should have been about 13.6 feet in diameter, and our box should have been 22 miles wide to put Pluto’s orbit in scale. Again on memory, to include the nearest star in our scale model, the box would have had to be 75,000 miles long, if the Earth had an 1.5 inch diameter. Very cool project, I love all the solar systems the kids did posted on the bulletin board. Cool project.
I enjoyed these lessons all the more because my daughters got involved. I am going to kick up the science next year, God Willing.