Friday, August 5, 2011

Making an Undiscovered Planet


If the Milky Way Galaxy is just one of billions of galaxies in outer space, it stands to reason that there are probably other planets out there somewhere just waiting to be discovered. Based on that notion, and my chiropractor’s account of this amazing craft her daughter did at the library’s story time, my son made his own planet.

Supplies:
Styrofoam ball
Old CD
Toothpick
Glue (white school glue; hot glue is optional)
Paint, glitter, etc.

Instructions:
I cut the ball in half and gave my son some acrylic paints to decorate the two halves. Then I inserted a toothpick in the center of one ball and had my son thread the CD through. Next, I added some hot glue and then topped the toothpick with the second half of the ball. All that was left to do was hand over some white glue and glitter. Once we had glue and glitter everywhere, our ringed planet was complete.

Now it was time to write about our new “discovery.” I created a short book with fill-in-the-blank sentences so my son could describe his planet. Download the “If I discovered a new planet …” book I made for free here.

Once we’d finished writing about (and drawing) the very cold and sometimes invisible “Planet Laser Gun,” I read my son an amazing National Geographic Kids book. When I say amazing, I mean it. A lot of the books at our library were WAY too detailed and scientific for my son’s understanding.

Becky Baines’ Every Planet Has a Place: A Book about Our Solar System provides text that is basic, but informative. The combination of real pictures with doodle-like art keeps the heavy subject-matter playful, too. It is a wonderful introduction for kindergarteners and first graders; check it out!

6 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, I LOVE this activity! We call my 7-year-old our little astronomer. He's obsessed with the solar system. He's going to love this project! I can't wait to do this with him. And I was shocked to find a book that he doesn't have on the subject, so I'll be putting my Amazon order in for that. He's really been enjoying a National Geographic Kids book over this summer called 13 Planets. If you haven't checked that out yet, I highly recommend it! :)

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  2. Wow! I love this. We are about to start Earth and Space science as soon as we wrap up our life/biology studies. I am saving this for future use. Thanks!!

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  3. I teach the solar system in a third grade curriculum. I saved so many of your ideas, and am so excited to start that unit. Can't thank you enough!!

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  4. Thank you so much! This is super cute!

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  5. Thank you so much! I look forward to using this in our new unit on Earth and Space

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