The solar system

Ages 9 to 12 Read alone or together · about 30 minutes

Read together

Eight planets orbit the Sun, along with moons, asteroids and comets.

The inner four are rocky. The outer four are giants of gas and ice.

Do it

1. Make a scale model: put a ball for the Sun at one end of a hall and pea-sized dots for planets, using a chart of distances.
2. Walk from the Sun to Earth and then to Neptune. Feel the empty space.
3. Learn the order: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
4. Look at the Moon tonight and note its shape.

Talk about it

• Which planets are rocky?
• Why is the model mostly empty space?

For the grown-up

Space is mostly empty, and distances are huge. Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Never look at the Sun, even through binoculars or a telescope, without proper solar filters. Psalm 19:1 says the heavens declare God's glory; read it as a paraphrase to check.

Mark as done

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Where this comes from

• NGSS Lead States, Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States (National Academies Press, 2013), performance expectation 5-ESS1-2 (patterns of the Sun, Moon and stars)
• NASA, Solar System Exploration pages on the planets
• International Astronomical Union, Resolution B5 (2006) on the definition of a planet

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.