Lesson 1

This term I taught the kids about Earth and space. This subject has been taught at least once a stage so we started this unit out with a review game. The kids in this class have looked up a lot of stuff and they knew quite a bit before we even started.

After the quiz I had the kids color a sheet with all the planets. I gave them a sheet that said why the planets were the colors they were. Then I had them design their own planet and say what it was made up of based on the colors they chose.

Lesson 2

One of the topics was debating whether the Earth is flat or not, but actually it was well understood by scientists and sailers (even by Columbus) that the Earth is not flat. What was controversial was the idea that the Earth was not the center of the Universe and our system. A teacher in the 1600s was put to death and Galileo was put under house arrest for spreading this idea. The reason that scientists realized that the earth and the rest of the planets must orbit the sun was because the planets appeared to have retrograde motion. When they looked at the stars and planets they all appeared to move (actually Earth is moving and what we see changes). Normally the planets move in the direction of the constellations, but sometimes they seem to move the opposite way. This is because The planets closer to the sun will “lap” outer planets, just like runners going around a track because the inner lanes are shorter. You can see the idea here, but I like this worksheet better.

Lesson 3

For this lesson we talked about planets in the solar system. I have a planet and moon matching game, and I had the kids draw one out and write some facts about it and try to create it with paper and/or yarn.

Here are some of the planets the kids made!

The book had some information which was helpful for this project.

Lesson 4

In this lesson we talked about how the moon always faces the same side to the Earth because its revolution and rotation time are the same. It is tidally locked with the Earth. I asked the kids to draw a picture or write a story about what the Earth would be like if it was tidally locked with the sun.

Lesson 5

What could life be like on other planets? In this lesson I asked the kids to make up their own planet. I asked them to think about what it may be made of, what the atmosphere might be like, and what kind of life could live there. What kind of star would give it energy, and how would life on the planet convert its energy into food? This was part of a larger discussion of living and non-living things. 

Lesson 6

In this lesson we talked about diatoms and I asked the kids to make some diatom art. I wanted the kids to see another example of a microorganism. We talked about them converting sunlight into nutrients and that they make oxygen.