Can you name all 9 - oops... 8 planets? When we began our unit on the Solar System, we put the planets in order according to their distance from the sun. The kids re-invented the old mnemonic device to remember them (since Pluto has been demoted from a planet to a pluton/dwarf planet!)
Our hallway display shows the planets in order - and also in relative size and distance from each other. I was really impressed to watch the kids work together to measure the diameter of each planet and then hang them on the wall according to their distance from the sun.
The first thing we do when we begin a new science study is make a K-W-L chart. As a class, we list what we already know about the subject (K) and then we write down things we want to learn during our study (W). The students were full of questions about the solar system! Space is something that is so interesting to thrid graders and we were lucky to get to study the solar system for 6 weeks! I recorded our questions on sentence strips and hung them in the hallway. As we learn the answers to our questions, we will post them on our hallway display so that everyone can learn with us! We will also finish our K-W-L chart by recording our answers in the "What we learned" section (L).
