What do you need?
1 large Styrofoam ball (two halves)
8 larger to small Styrofoam balls
two tooth picks
4 wooden skewers
two exta long skewers
hobby glue
transparent printer foil
nylon thread
acrylic paint in various colors
gold glitter paint & paint brushes
2 tips
- The mini-monsters find the universe and the planets very cool and have lots of questions, so be prepared for using the internet.
- Paint the sticks black and put a black cardboard sheet in which you prick holes with a needle behind the solar system.
Then it looks almost real!
Mix red paint with drops of yellow into orange.
Paint both the halves with it, it will become the sun.
Paint Uranus and Neptune a light and darker blue.
Paint the planets on a stick and let them dry in a jar.
Mercury, Mars and Venus will be respectively grey, red and golden-yellow, Earth blue/green.
Brush a layer of gold glitter on the sun. Stick the thread in and glue the halves in a whole.
Paint circles on Saturn an Jupiter, Saturn will have rings too, as will Uranus.
With a bread knife you saw neatly as can be Saturn and Uranus in half.
Use a transparant foil printer sheet for the rings.
Find an object (bowl?) big enough for Saturns rings and trace it.
Trace a glass for Uranus' rings.
Cut the circles from the foil.
Use different size glasses to trace pencil rings on the coarse side.
Stick the planet halves on the foil and let them dry.*
*Be frugal with glue when sticking on the rings. First let the glue dry a little than press the planet halves firmly onto the foil.
When all planets are dry including Saturn and Uranus' rings stick the skewers in different lenghts into the planets. Stick the other ends into the sun.
Closest to the Sun are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Then the giants Jupiter and Saturn. Farthest from the sun are Uranus and Neptune.
Previously Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet of our solar system, standing furthest away from the sun. Now Pluto is classified as a dwarf planet because it is significantly smaller than the other planets. It belongs no longer standard to our solar system.