Lorelai requested a solar system craft after watching an episode of Bubble Guppies last week. I thought it was a GREAT idea! I’ve also been wanting to bring back themed weeks in our preschool program so this was the perfect excuse. I’ve got a space-themed activity or craft lined up for every day this week. Stay tuned!
Anyway, she really enjoyed doing this one – probably because it was all her idea! I went back and forth about whether to make the planets bigger, but I figured it’d be best to keep it as a 1-page printable. The smaller planets don’t look very big when printed out, but the whole thing really comes together when hung up on the wall. =) I also tried to keep the planets to scale the best I could based on the picture from this site (which is also a GREAT resource for planets), but who knows if that’s completely accurate. It’s good enough for me!! I also only included our planet’s moon. This website has a great list of all of the moons – feel free to draw, cut out, and include the other 170-ish! Haha =)
Solar system
Materials We Used:
1 Paper Plate (for the sun)
3 Pieces of Cardstock (1 to print on, 2 to glue down on)
Paint (we used watercolors)
Paintbrushes
Glue
Tape
Marker (optional)
Directions:
Print our the solar system printable (below) and have your child paint it. Our colors most definitely are not exact, but I tried to keep them close to the image on this website.
Paint the paper plate (sun) yellow.
Once dry, cut out each planet. Be sure to write the name of the planet on the back so you don’t get them mixed up!! For saturn, I just cut the white part (where the rings don’t touch the planet) out of leftover cardstock. You could just cut it out with scissors or a pairing knife as well.
Once all of the planets are cut out, tape two pieces of cardstock together like the photo above. I just used tape on the back half so it wouldn’t show up on the front.
Lay out your sun and planets and make them all fit across the two sheets of cardstock. As you can see, our sun hangs off the end.
Glue everything down.
Add any writing or text! I was going to have Lorelai write everything but she obviously wasn’t in a writing mood, hence the cover-ups. =)
Another thing you could do is paint/color the white cardstock. I wanted the planets to stand out so we didn’t, but if you made all of the planets super light colors, it would work.
Love this! I really appreciate all the awesome stuff you share. I’m definitely going to do this with my 4 year old so she can get a visual. She already knows the names of the planets thanks to They Might Be Giants. They have some awesome science songs on the album Here Comes Science.
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I love this! Found you on Skip To My Lou. Would you please share this with our readers for Fun Stuff Fridays? http://www.toysinthedryer.com/2012/02/fun-stuff-fridays-11.html
Love this! I really appreciate all the awesome stuff you share. I’m definitely going to do this with my 4 year old so she can get a visual. She already knows the names of the planets thanks to They Might Be Giants. They have some awesome science songs on the album Here Comes Science.