Making Science Fun : Exploring the Solar System with Kids

Noah looks out on the solar system

Space has often featured quite highly in our homeschooling as at one time or another it’s interested different members of the family. Perhaps you remember the space station we made when Noah was obsessed with Tim Peake? So it’s no surprise that we had a blast exploring the solar system together recently.

Making Science Fun is easy when you have great hands-on activities to do as well as entertaining videos to watch and good textbooks. For the Solar System we were inspired by the amazing book Astronomy Lab for Kids by Michelle Nichols. The 52 activities inside our inspiring and challenging. Even better they use household supplies so you don’t have to run out and spend a lot of money on extra equipment – yay!

Introducing the Solar System

To begin our study of the solar system. I first asked the kids questions like what do you know about our solar system? And, can you name any of the planets? We then watched some videos suggested by national geographic. They were a fun mix with some songs and funny stuff mixed in.

Getting an idea of scale

Once we’d familiarised ourselves with our solar system we got ready to do a demonstration from the Astronomy Lab for Kids book called, Take a walk on the rocky planets. The rocky planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – the four closest to the sun. The other planets are gassy planets.

To do this demo we first had to make a giant circle to represent the sun. We followed the instructions in the book and taped together pieces of A4 until we had a big enough square to trace a circle with a 92cm diameter. We also followed the instructions to trace our circle. What we did was tie a 46cm piece of string to a pen and then held the string down in the centre of the paper while we used the pen to trace the circle. This was a great skill for the kids to learn.

Next we made the 4 rocky planets our of play-doh. This was actually quite hard as they had to be really tiny, we’re talking mm. The kids really enjoyed trying and measuring them to see if they were the right size. We then taped our play-doh planets to pieces of paper with the names of the planets on them. Be careful if you do this to make sure the little play-doh planets are well attached or you might lose them like we did! 

 

It was now time to head outside. First we placed the sun right at the far end of the (very quiet, read virtually unused and private) road outside our house. Noah (8) sat down on the sun. Yes, he is wearing a helmet as he decided he needed to dress appropriately if he was going into space! 

 

Lotta (5) and I then paced out the 62 steps to get to Mercury. The steps had to be approximately 60cm long. We used a tape measure to check. Lotta sat down holding Mercury.

Maya (12) then paced out the 54 steps to Venus. Then I took 45 steps and placed the earth and finally my husband Frank paced a whopping 84 steps to be Mars.

This experiment was easy to set up because we had all the supplies on hand. It was fun to execute. I told the kids we were going on a space journey to see how far the rocky planets were from the sun. It was brilliant for getting an idea of the scale of things in space, not only the distances between the sun and the planets but also how giant the sun is compared to the rocky planets.

The kids really enjoyed not only the making part of this but also the demo.

Making a Model of the Solar System

Later on that day we worked on three different models of the solar system to help fix what they’d been learning in the kids minds.

This was really easy to adapt to different ages. For Lotta, I printed a picture of the solar system to colour in then traced it onto water colour paper because she decided she’d like to paint the solar system. She really enjoyed painting although it was a bit fiddly with some of the smaller planets. If I were to do this again with a five year old I’d probably scale it up so it would be better adapted to their fine motor skills. 

   
Noah was lucky to have one of these. His sister has one too but she painted hers ages ago. It had been sat in his drawer for a bit and our morning’s activities really fired up his enthusiasm. He really enjoyed using our DK encyclopedia to make sure he painted all the planets accurately.

Finally, Maya drew the solar system in a circular fashion to show the planets in orbit round the sun. She added a scale across the bottom which shows distances between the planets. And also a section on the right of her paper to write a little bit about each of the planets. Again she used the DK Encyclopedia for information. 

 

Classifying the Solar System

Our final activity was a sorting game. This activity also came from Astronomy Laboratory. I printed off about thirty pictures of our solar system and the children took it in turns to put them in groups based on their own organsiational systems. The other kids then had to try and guess what their categories were. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how much the kids loved this simple game to the point that they got up and started playing it again the very next day!

Conclusion

Making science fun is easy if you use good books, hands on demos or experiments and let them express themselves when recording what they've learnt. 

Exploring the Solar System has been a really memorable and rewarding experience so far. Yes, so far because we still have a whole host of other projects from Astronomy Labo we'd like to try out as well as some more fun looking documentaries to watch! 

 

Making Science Fun : Our Top Three Science Shows for Kids

We watched quite a few tv shows last week when we all came down with a horrible flu-like virus. It was one way to feel we were still doing some learning. It inspired me to finally get round to writing this blog post and sharing with you another way of making science fun with our top three science shows for kids. 

Screen time can be a complicated thing when you're homeschooling. On the one hand, we've all read the literature about how too much screen time is bad for our kids. On the other, there are just so many great documentaries out there and it would be a crying shame not to exploit them! Because I have to admit I get tired of the sound of my own voice. I don't want my children only to hear and learn things from me. It's important to shake things up, find other teachers. And a really good documentary or TV show can be just that.

Science Max

Science Max is currently one of the children's favourite things to watch period. It's up there with Star Wars and Coco and many other of their favourite films. Quite a feat. Made by the Canadian company TVOkids, it's secret formula is a young, appealing presenter and a fun concept - let's do everything bigger!

Yes, Science Max takes your average experiment even we can do at home and does it again and again bigger and bigger. The kids absolutely love this especially when it involves Phil the presenter getting wet or dirty. I like it because it repeats the science several times in slightly different ways. This means the kids see the science repeatedly but without it being boring. 

Repetition is really important in any learning situation and a show that manages to do this while having my kids and I in fits of laughter is a definite winner. 

Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom

A BBC show, Absolute Genius is a fun, exciting watch. The first two series celebrate famous scientists. They explore the concepts they were working on in fun and entertaining ways. In series three and four they explore technological inventions and then 'monster builds'. 

As with Science Max there's a high entertainment element to be had from watching the two presenters do stuff. It might be getting inside a Faraday cage or fully clothed in a bath or jumping into canoes to study the principles of Archimedes screw. Whichever, it's always funny to watch as well as informative.

C'est Pas Sorcier 

Ok so this one's in French I'm afraid for all you English only speakers out there. But I couldn't make a list of our top three favourite science shows for kids without mentioning it! We love C'est Pas Sorcier because it covers so many different and fascinating topics. It also combines demonstrations with visits to relevant real life sites that illustrate the science. Hey tv show makers out there, why not copy this fabulous french formula for your next science show! 

Although some people might disagree I don't believe watching shows, even as good as these, is enough by itself. We use them wisely in conjunction with books and home experiments to help us understand more fully the concepts we're studying. We usually do anything hands on before we watch the TV shows too. This way the kids go into their experiments in the real position of a scientists who doesn't know what the outcomes might be. 

What TV shows are great for is consolidation through playful repetition and colourful exposition of the ideas and theories we're exploring. And these shows do this so well that the kids often ask to watch them again and again.

These shows are also good at inspiring kids to see science as being something that's fun. With their goofy presenters, the infallible humour of seeing someone get covered in foam and the excitement of seeing a really big or dangerous experiment they inspire my kids to feel passionately that science is worth being interested in. Without them our educational environment would be infinitely poorer. Well done to all those television makers for making such great shows!