Hobbies And Interests
Solar System Model
One of the popular crafts associated with the solar system is to create a model of it using Styrofoam balls of varying size and wooden sticks. Color a large Styrofoam ball yellow to represent the sun and then planets around the sun in their distanced order: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and even Pluto if you still want to consider it a planet. Make sure the sticks for each are longer than the one the planet before it to signify those planets are farther away.
Paper Plate Sun
The planets of our solar system revolve around the sun, a yellow dwarf star. Children can create their own sun using a paper plate. Paint the rear of a paper plate yellow and using yellow construction paper, let the students make cutouts of their hands about seven times. Paste them to the back of a paper plate with the fingers facing outward so they are sticking out like the rays of the sun.
Spaced Out
Spaced Out is a fun and entertaining way to relate the distance of the planets from the sun. Create a football-sized sun using anything that you want and place it on the goal line of the local football field. Tell the children that one yard will equal 10 million miles and place appropriately sized balls on the field, representing the planets, at their respective distances. To make it interactive, let the students figure out where each planet would go on the field. Treat the field as a continuous 100 yards even though the numbers reverse at the 50-yard line.
Planet Trivia
Place cardboard or construction paper planets in a circle around a large yellow sun. Label each planet. Put the students into teams and tell them they are explorers and that to win the game, they must visit each planet and answer a trivia question. The students get to pick which direction they want to go. If they don't get the question right, they have to move back to the previous planet.