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What is a fun activity to teach elementary students about the solar system? And a fun way to memorize the planets in order?
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Hello Angelica, my name is Karen reading your question really caught my eye because my elementary sciene teacher would always give us fun activities that had to do with the solar system. For example, one of them was going outside and with the chalk we would draw the solar system in order with the help of a visual, this way we would see the solar systems as big as possible and colorful which would help us remember the solar system. Our science teacher always let us know that it was important to memorize the planets in order so she would have us memorize them by color and name so when she would call on us we would already know with what planet the solar system started with.
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Hi Angelica. In my field experience classroom, my mentor teacher taught a unit on the solar system. She did a wonderful job with this and had her students do modeling of a solar system through a home project in which she gave two weeks to complete. I think that if I was going to teach, I would do this same thing, but I would have each student do a worksheet on each individual planet to give students an insight on each planet's characteristics. This way, they know the biggest planet, the smallest, which planet is the hottest, the coldests, so on so forth. Videos are so plentiful and finding one shouldn't be hard for the introduction to the unit. TPT also has some great worksheets and activities for students to learn about the planets, their moons, etc.
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Memorizing the order the planets doesn't teach much about the planets. Try this: Divide students into eight pairs or groups (depending on how many students you have), and assign each group one planet to learn about and then make a presentation to the class. As a result of their investigation and the presentations, the students will automatically learn, not only the order of the planets, but also a lot more about them. For example, they'll learn about their moons, rings, etc., i.e., a lot that they wouldn't get by just memorizing the order of the planets.
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Hello Angelica, learning about the Solar System was one of my favorite things to learn in Elementary. One of the most memorable activities or projects for that matter would be having students create small models of the Solar System in a diorama. I had so much fun creating the small planets. Another idea can be bringing a spheric object to school that can represent a planet for a classroom sized solar solar system.
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Hi Angelica! A good activity to to teach elementary students about the solar system can be a solar system model of the planets. The students would learn about the solar system in class first and do the activity at home to turn it by the following week. The activity would consist of materials like colors, markers, and paint to color/decorate the styrofoam sphere shaped planets. The students will create their own solar system model with the names attached to the styrofoam sphere shaped planets and paste the planets on a cardboard or put them on sticks. A fun way to memorize the planets in order that I was taught as a child was singing the planets in order but the the first letter of each planet was substituted by another word. In order the planets are MVEMJSUN and so it would go like My Very Excellent Mom Just Served Us Noodles.
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