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Back to : Astronomy for Beginners Main Page
Astronomy for Beginners
Planets
Constellations
Coloured light
Links
(Image courtesy Nasa copyright free policy)
 You DON'T have to do everything suggested here! Choose ideas that you think the children will enjoy, and which fit in best with what you are doing anyway. You don't have to do what we have put here if you or the children have ideas of your own which fit the theme. At the bottom of this page there are links to websites which you and/or the children might find useful.
You could start by getting the children to paint or draw what they think astronomy is about.
Planets
Note: Pluto is no longer classed as a planet, but as a dwarf planet, so there are eight true planets.
- make the planets out of clay or papier mache and decorate them - ordering them by size
- draw or paint the planets again ordering them by size
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- how many planets are there?
- which is the biggest?
- which is the smallest?
- where does the Earth come in order?
- sort the planets by distance from the Sun, by size, by number of moons, by type
- act out the planets
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- one child could be dressed up to represent the planet and tell us something about it
- others could be the moons (if it has them), circling around the planet
- planets could circle round the Sun
- make up a rhyme or mnemonic to help children remember the order of the planets - where did their names come from?
- invent your own planet - show it to us and tell us about it
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 Constellations
- find out about one or two of the constellations, such as The Plough, Orion, Cassiopeia
- what shape are they?
- how many stars do they have?
- where did their names come from?
A useful website with some additional activities is http://rip.physics.unk.edu/Astronomy/Constellations(k-2).html.
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Looking at things with different coloured light
Collect together pieces of acetate (OHP slides, sweet wrappers, ...) in a range of colours, and a variety of objects in different colours. Then get the children to look at the objects through different coloured pieces of acetate. What do you see if you look at an object:
- through a piece of acetate more or less the same colour
- through a piece of acetate of a different colour
Our eyes see light as a mixture of red, blue or green. When they all mix together in equal amounts we see white light, and that is what we normally see with. Looking through a piece of, say, red acetate, means we are looking at something using just red light. If we look at something through a piece of yellow acetate, we are looking at it using the red and green light, but no BLUE light.
- What does a red object look like if you look at it through a piece of acetate which will not let the red light pass through it, eg. blue or green?
- What does a red object look like if you look at it through a piece of acetate which does let the red light through it, eg. red, orange or purple?
Do other experiments along these lines.
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Links
Let us know which of these are most useful, or if you find other links which are good. You may find additional activities on these pages also.
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