|
Big Spring School District, Oak Flat Elementary School Third grade teacher Niki Donato saw that there was no kit available to address the solar system, and she set out to fill a need and create an engaging solar system curriculum herself. Niki devised a solar system unit that spans four to five weeks, and has been adopted by other educators in the district. Niki's unit is interdisciplinary as well, incorporating reading, writing, and language arts skills.
|
Niki's lesson for the day features several different types of activities, all of which effectively keep her students engaged, curious, and questioning. To open the day's science lesson, the students sing a song that explores the different features of each of the planets of the solar system.
Working in small groups, the students sing about the unique characteristics of each of the planets in "the family of the sun," as they call it. The song encourages the students to listen and think about what they hear, and how and why the planets are different from each other.
Sung to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell," here are a few verses: Great Jupiter is big. We've studied it a lot. We've found that it has 16 moons and a big red spot. Saturn has great rings. When the song is finished, Niki asks questions, prompting the students to think about the effects of temperature and light on the planetary conditions. |
After some discussion about the planets, Niki and her students turn to reading. Niki has incorporated Magic School Bus books about space exploration into the lesson, and the students read sections together in small groups.
|
Niki travels among the small groups as they read to each other, and offers questions to prompt their thinking.
|
 Niki wrote the key terms for them to consider in the course of the day's reading and discussions on the the chalkboard. Later in the unit, as the students continue their planetary explorations, they combine science and language arts skills by writing a postcard to their parents as if they were visiting the planets, describing some of the things they observe on the planets and what they think their observations might mean.
|
After reading, Niki invites her students to sit on the carpet, where she has some illustrative visual activities waiting.
|
The activity uses a basketball as the Sun, a baseball as the Earth, and a golf ball as the moon—and the students delight in noting physical similarities between the pockmarked surface of the golf ball and the craters of the moon. Niki and her students discuss the sometimes tricky topics of rotation on an axis and around another body. They consider issues of day length, and think about the factors such as distance from the Sun and rotation speed that cause other planets in the solar system to have different day lengths. Here, the students are modeling the rotation of the Earth around the sun, while the moon simulataneously rotates around the Earth. It calls for some skilled fingerwork, but the kids do a great job illustrating the concept.
|
Try to imagine that you're in the darkness of outer space…Here, Niki devised an activity to illustrate why the Sun only illuminates certain areas of the Earth at any given time. The students—each representing a different region of the world—circle the static sun, each receiving light from the Sun when it's "daytime" for that region. |
Unasked, some students created this model of the solar system at home and brought it into class to share with the others.Niki says that her students are always very curious about the solar system, and ask lots of great questions. She's found that it's the one science unit of the year that seems to engage absolutely every student's interest. With fun lessons like these, it's hard to see how it could not. We're very grateful to Niki for allowing this peek inside her classroom.
|
