At Home in the Galaxy

The past couple of weeks we've been working on learning about our solar system. We focused on a planet a day, and then also a few days for the sun, moon, and stars. We found a whole series of books at the library, one about each planet. They're part of the "Our Universe" series by Lerner Publications.


Danya chose this topic and really enjoyed it. I'm thinking about getting her a set of those glow-in-the-dark stars that you can stick all over the ceiling for her room.

Here's a link to show you what I'm talking about: Glow Stars

I drew the picture she's holding in the photo to show her the planets in order (although technically we learned that Pluto and Neptune sometimes swap places in the lineup) and taught her this sentence to remember their names in order: "My Very Early Mother Just Served Us Noodle Pizza." The first letter of each word is the same as the first letter of the planets in order: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Danya picked it up quickly and had them memorized by the end of the day. Now she can say them forwards and backwards! She even knows the names of some of their moons!

Gloria thinks it's pretty funny that the sun is made of gas since her knowledge of "gas" is limited to the bodily kind. She can also now tell you what rotate and orbit mean. We finished up our unit study by borrowing some "Bill Nye, the Science Guy" videos from the library. Here's a link to his website: http://www.billnye.com/