Size matters! Exploring relative sizes of the planets
Who said that size doesn’t matter? It does, when it comes to planet sizes. As we are learning the Solar System, I constantly chant: “Jupiter, the biggest planet in the Solar System… Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system…” Yet, size numbers don’t mean much to a four year old. So, we did this project to try hands on learning on the planets sizes and their distance from the sun.
The idea for this project came from The Planets in Our Solar System (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out, Science, Stage 2) by Franklyn M. Branley.
This file contains the images of all the planets, all scaled proportionally to each other: Planets Images.
To see how far is each planet from the sun…
Print the planets, cut and laminate. Jupiter and Saturn I was printing and making from pieces – they are too big
Decide where is going to be the “sun” on your wall.
Get the tape measure and hang the planets on the wall in a row…
Mercury: 35, 898,000 miles from the sun. Just kidding. 2 inches from your “sun” model.
Venus: 67,084,000 miles from the sun; 3 inches from your “sun”.
Earth: 92,752,000 miles from the sun; 4 inches from your “sun”.
Mars: 141,298,000 miles from the sun; 6 inches from your “sun”.
Jupiter: 482,546,000 miles away; 1 foot, 9 inches from your “sun”.
Saturn: 884,740,000 miles from sun; 3 feet, 2 inches from your “sun”.
Uranus: 1,779,152,000 miles from sun; 6 feet, 5 inches from your “sun”.
Neptune: 2,787,892,000 miles from sun; 10 feet, 1 inch from your “sun”.
Pluto: 3,658,000,000 miles from sun; 13 feet, 3 inches from your “sun”.
In our home, the planets took over the entire room. At the end of our astronomy week I asked my 4 year old Sunshine which project he liked best. It was not an easy decision: this week we were baking cookies (eatable stars and planets were a big hit), playing Astronomy Bingo, doing Love your Solar System Practical life activity, reading books and watching Magic Schoolbus. This one turned out to be his favorite, though I doubt that it had to do with planets. I think it was more about using a tape measure…
Well, regardless the tape measure, one thing is clear: after all the fun we had this week, he knew his planets and solar system facts, better, then I ever did!
