Solar System Art

Solar System Art Project

This is a well loved, super fun, and visually satisfying planet activity!  We have 9 different colors of pom pom balls for the main planets (including Pluto), a small, white one for Earth's moon, and a small brown one for Jupiter's spot.  There are plastic bracelets for Saturn's rings and we cut out half circles and put orange, sparklie tulle material over it for the suns (we pre-made these).  

Tacky glue works best for this project and we cut black poster board into strips for the night sky.  In addition, we traced a circle to make each planet's elliptical path so the children knew where to glue each planet. (the circle used to trace the hemispheres for the world map worked nicely)   We included the asteroid belt in this.

The pom-pom balls are all different textures and sizes.  We tried to do our best to make it relative to the real planets! 

Moon Exploration Work

Moon Exploration Work 

We are spending a couple of weeks on the moon within our Solar System unit.  We have read many books on the moon, the exploration we've done there, and various facts.  This work is on my practical life shelf. 

I made play-dough with and used my Wilton's frosting dye to make the grey color (I used black)

There are two different sized marbles to make the craters, an American flag, an astronaut and a lunar rover in the basket (these two items are from the space Safari Toobs)

They first make a sphere out of the play-dough to represent the moon's real shape. Then they flatten it out with their hands to form a circle.  Using the marbles they make craters and let the astronaut and the lunar rover explore.

We did put emphasis to not squish the lunar rover or astronaut into the play-dough as it will get all stuck in each crevice!  We have other play-dough on the art shelf to explore with in that way :)

Pea Shelling

This was very fun for the summer program!  They first cut the ends off and then simply open the peas and take them out to eat!  I limited this activity to two peas each so there was enough for everyone each day.

 Here is a sweet boy shelling his peas :)

Farm Animal Grouping and Labeling

For my farm unit I created this simple activity.  The fence is actually my old 'Breyer' fence from my horse collection from when I was little :)  It's very handy as it folds up accordion style.  There is an assortment of farm animals that they first group together and then match the label to.  It is self correcting as the labels have pictures of the animals on them.  

 After grouping them together and matching the labels appropriately they can write the words of the animals on the paper most appropriate for them (strips of paper or lined paper).  Of course there is often some play involved after all the work is done which they always love.

Color Matching

This is a work I usually put out at the beginning of the school year.  The triangles are are laminated together and the clothes pins have the colors glued on them that are from paint samples (you could color them as well with a sharpie)

Here are some little hands matching the colors and clipping them on.

The finished product!

Fruit Leather

We are lucky enough to have a food dehydrator at our school from 'Dry It You'll Like It'.  We made fruit leather with mashed up raspberries with a little honey added to it.  We passed it around circle, let everyone have a turn mashing the berries and then they all scooped out a 1/4 cup onto a piece of waxed paper.

 There were so yummy!  We let them dehydrate for two days and then served them at snack!

Bats on Moon Counting Work

This is a work I've wanted to make for years.  I finally got around to it this year.  I used Ben Franklin's dye cuts which are free to use as long as you buy the felt or paper there.

I made a few extra bats as I'm sure some will get lost at some point!

This was in constant use during October and they referred to it as the "Batman Work"  :)