Astronomers Week 1

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Description

Learning about the Solar System, Planets & Sun, etc


Resources

Pictures of the solar system for aid and a golf ball with some rice.

Instructions

1. Discuss the Sun, the position of Earth from the Sun and the other planets.
2. Discuss the order of planets from the Sun and learn the sequence (My Very Excellent Mother Just Serves Us New Potatoes!) - try and draw basic solar system. Use Named Picture for learning the sequence and Unnamed Picture for quiz. Use black & white picture for colouring-in.
3. Outside - Pacing out from the Sun (use golf ball) (1 pace = 10 million Km), set out Mercury (5 paces), Venus (6 more paces), Earth (4 more paces), Mars (6 more paces), Jupiter (54 more paces), Saturn (60 more paces), Uranus (140 more paces), Neptune (165 more paces). By now, you are 440 paces (4,400,000,000Km) from the 'Sun'! At each planet 'stop' leave a grain of rice (which is actually far too big for this scale but gives the idea) and when you return back from 'Neptune', to give the Cubs an idea of how large the solar system is and how small we are, get them to find the 'planets' (grains of rice previously left on way out) - see how many they find!
Alternative 3. Buy the fruits in picture below for size difference.


Tags

  • astronomer

Badge Links

  • Astronomer - Model
  • Astronomer - Model or draw
  • Astronomer - Planet vs star