Unplugged & Recycled Solar System

I almost curse introducing my kids to this unplugged concept! The other day we had no school, but they woke me up bright and early, all excited to work on our solar system unplugged project. Note all photos depict the kids still in pajamas, and if you could see their innards there would be two very empty stomachs because they did not want to eat breakfast. Although, a snack break did happen an hour into the project. And mom was sure to down her required morning coffee.

This week's inspiration was BALL. The kids had two ideas. The first being play basket ball. And being that we have had week after week of frigid temperatures, keeping the kids inside more than usual, I thought a raucous game of basketball was a good idea.

But the fun didn't stop there. The girls wanted to do a *project* not just play. So, we talked a bit about what we could do that would involve "ball" and they came up with the idea of creating a solar system mobile for our Space Room. (Our guest room came with an entire wall covered with a giant photo of the Space Shuttle Challenger.) And being that Gherkie is all about the solar system in general, I was up for the challenge.

We gathered the plethora of solar system books we have on hand, and looked through them for reference on planet size and shape/marking etc. The girls each drew the relative size of each planet, so we would know what size to make all 9 balls. (And we all know that Pluto is no longer a planet, but just try to convince Gherkie of that fact!)

Gherkie also decided she should draw any distinguishing features for each planet; this was all done from memory. She is getting into the whole documenting your thought process. While her writing is not the best, and spelling is, uhh, questionable (apple does not fall far from the tree there) I was pretty impressed with her knowledge of all the planets.

We decided to create this solar system with whatever we had on hand. (Especially since they were not dressed and had not eaten breakfast. But basically why would I purchase something when I can reuse objects I already have in my house.) So we made newspaper balls and glued them together.

We have yet to paint the solar system. The balls of gooey newspaper needed to dry before we tackled painting. And the girls went to Nanna and Poppa's for the weekend before they were dry. This upcoming week is crazy busy, but I hope to finish this project soon. I have to figure exactly how to hang these planets, but I'm sure I can figure that one out.