The Solar System

To be honest, I don't think I will ever get over Pluto not being a planet, non-the-less, I still love talking with my class about the Solar System. I'll have to admit that I was a little worried this year's discussions because my class is younger than in the pasts. Most of my students are still 3 and won't turn 4 until the late spring or summer. Setting my worries aside I jumped right in. Good thing too because our battle cry this week was "WE LOVE THE SOLAR SYSTEM!" My partner in crime, a.k.a. Mrs. Christi, came up with something a little different this year. "Let's EACH make a giant solar system", she said! My response, "uh, okay?" Turned out to be a great idea, very difficult, but very fun! Each day we discussed and made two planets. Each planet was made with a different craft method. We did everything, First we made a giant sun with our famous "squishy painting). Next, we rubbed Mercury over some sandpaper. Venus and Jupiter were made with marble painting, while Mars was painted and sprinkled with grits. Uranus and Neptune were water colored, and the Earth and Venus were finger painted. Everyone loved seeing the "real" pictures (special thanks to my son, who let me use all his old childhood NASA photos) of the planets. Each child was also assigned a planet to be his/her. At the end of the week we were all calling each other by our planet names - SUPER fun! On Friday we decided that it was time to put our creations all together. WOW, super huge project, too big for our little classroom so we headed to the big music room.

After all the planets were glued on we added some fun colors stars and sang our song about the solar system.
Of course no "Fabulous Fun Friday" (yes, that is what we call it!) would be complete without a fabulously fun trip to the kitchen for a super special snack. This week we ate a rocket ship! Graham crackers, Fruit Loops and M&M's make a super solar snack!

Don't you just love the planet M&M's?!?!? The Fruit Loop windows somehow were eaten before the photo was taken :) !

Oh, and just for the record, we vote on things in our classroom and after much discussion we decided . . . PLUTO should still be considered a planet! Once again, my class surprised me with their wonderful enthusiasm for learning.
My motto - make it fun and they will learn!