To start off the year, the students did a sensory/observation activity last week. I passed around brown paper bags with common household objects in them. Instead of looking in the bag, students had to use their sense of touch and smell to write descriptive words and make a guess as to what the object was. The learning goals were to work on our observation skills, scientific language and to introduce students to the scientific method. Questions to ask your student: What were the objects? How did you know? What words did you use to describe them?
This week, we started investigations in the solar system. Students worked with cards with each of the components of our solar system on them, including comets, planets, satellites, asteroids and the sun. On the back of each of these cards is important information about the object's mass, diameter, composition, distance from sun and temperatures. We worked on organizing them in order from the sun, and next week will work on other sorting skills. We also watched a video and discussed the sun's gravitational pull. Key questions to ask:
- What is the order of the planets? (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Pluto is now classified as a dwarf planet.)
- What is the difference between the inner and outer planets? (Inner planets are rocky and solid, while outer planets are made of gas.)
- What is the largest planet? (Jupiter) The smallest? (Mercury)
- What planets have very high surface temperatures? (Those closest to the sun, though Venus is hotter than Mercury because it has an atmosphere that helps it retain heat.)
- Why don't the earth and other objects fly off into outer space? (Because of the sun's gravitational pull)
- Why do the moon and man-made satellites continue to orbit around the earth? (Because of gravitational pull of the earth.)
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