Learning CAN Be Fun!!

If the ones that hit the planet are called meteorites, then what do you call the ones that missed?

Meteor-wrongs!

In coordination with Miss Frizzle and The Magic School Bus, Kira and I have been learning a lot about the planets.  Here is what Kira remembers from our lessons this week:

1. Mercury is the hottest planet.  It is also the smallest.  
2. Venus is the brightest planet but we cannot see it at night.  They call it Earth's twin.
3. Earth is where we live and the only place that has life.
4. Mars is the red planet.  It has iron in the dirt and is covered with dust.
5. Jupiter is the largest one and has a LOT of moons!  It is a gas planet. (And she giggles...)
6. Saturn has rings and is also a gas planet.  
7. Uranus is blue-green and also has skinny rings.  
8. We cannot see Neptune without a telescope.
9. Pluto is not a planet any more. *frown*

I found a lapbook that was specifically for the Magic School Bus episode we watched.  With the information from it and the other things I found our lapbook was 3 folders long.   

We also made a play-dough model of the planets, minus Pluto to which Kira responded 'It's still a planet.  It's just smaller!'  Technically it is. It is a dwarf planet but I am not going to attempt to argue the point today.  Our play-dough models -- were kinda to scale.  We tried to use this website and the instructions (which seem easy) weren't as child (or parent) friendly.  I guess I just had trouble with the directions.  We did our best and that is all that matters.  Miss Frizzle said to 'Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!'  By the time they were painted, Kira's fingers were a rainbow of colors!  Now that they are painted, I have no idea what we are going to do with them, but we had fun making them.

Oh, and my friend Christina, sent me a link to the Blues Clues Planet Song.  Kira is in the process of learning it and I will post it this weekend!