Astronomy Week 3

This week we started in on the planets. Starting with an introduction and an activity using different sized balls, marbles, etc to demonstrate the difference in size between the planets. There is a series of books by Seymour Simon on the solar system and most of the planets which are very good.

We started with Mercury and played around with making craters, since Mercury has many due to the fact that it has no atmosphere.

We started by mixing flour and water until a pretty soft consistency. Not runny, but not a dough either. Then to cut down on the stickiness I sprinkled flour on top of that. Then they gathered 3 different sized balls- a marble and a small and large bouncy ball.


They dropped them from down low, up high and from standing. They threw them from the various levels too. Rylan measured the width after each crater was made.

This one was the large ball, thrown as hard as possible. It was the widest if you counted the rings that appeared from the impact.

Today we talked about Venus. We didn't have an activity to go along with it, but we had a pretty good discussion about why it is so hot and the greenhouse effect.

Our art project this week, while not really part of our Astronomy unit, was space themed.This one was inspired by Deep Space Sparkle again, though I did change the procedure a bit.


Start by drawing a space shuttle. I did this step by step on the white board and helped Lakin draw his, at his request. Once you've got all the parts drawn, trace them in black oil pastel.Then color in the shuttle however you want.

Once the shuttles are done get out your red, orange and yellow paints. And paint the background one color and add the other colors to show the ignition flames coming from the bottom of the shuttle.

Cale's

Lakins'

Cohen's

Rylan's

And we ended the day by watching online videos of the Discovery, Atlantis and Challenger launches.