Theme: As students study this unit, they should come to realize that our human scale is tiny when compared to scale of the universe.
 

Teachers, please remember to have a signed permission form before completing any on-line activities.  If your school does not have permission forms, there are on-line copies available.    English Permission Form  Spanish Permission Form
 
 

Grade Level 4-5th
 

                                            LESSONS
 

Overview of lesson plan

    Students will read an on-line article, All About Our Solar System.  This article discusses and describes the composition, order and size of the planets.  It also covers information on asteroids, comets, meteoroids and the sun.

Procedure:

    When they have finished reading the article they must complete an interactive puzzle on the solar system.  They must print out the results of their answers.  This is a multiple choice answers puzzle and is self checking.

Objectives
Students will Identify:  How many planets exist in our solar system
                                   What planet is closest to the sun
                                   The farthest from the sun
                                   Which is the largest planet in our solar system

Goals:  12.F.2a  1.A.2a  1.A2.b

Overview of lesson plan

Students will read the on-line article, The Earth. This article talks about the earth’s place in our solar system.  It also talks about the earth’s orbit, mass, density and escape velocity. It goes on to explain other exciting facts about our planet.

Procedure:

When they have completed reading the article they must complete the interactive earth puzzle and print up the result of their answers.  They must also write a short summary of the article.

Objectives
Students will identify: How long it takes the earth to revolve around the sun
                                 How far the earth is from the sun
                                 What the earth's core is made of
                                 The major components of the earth's atmosphere

Goals:  12.F2a  3.A.2a  1.A.2a  1.A.2b

Overview of lesson plan

In this lesson, students will write a futuristic story.  It will be their vision of our future and its place within the solar system.  This story will be written on-line at Quotable Kids.

Prompt:  What is your vision of the future?  What do you think the world and our solar system will be like when you grow up?  Stretch your mind and imagination.  Go forth and may all the positive and creative forces be with you!

Objectives
Students will:  Write a three paragraph futuristic story
                      Use grammatically correct sentence and story structure
                      Use correct spelling, capitalization and punctuation

Goals:  3.A.2  3.B.2a  3.C.2a  3.C.2b2

Overview of lesson plan

In this lesson, students will investigate the effects of gravity and mass have on earthly weight.  They will calculate their weight on the moon and the other 8 planets in our solar system.

Procedure:  They will go to Kidsnspace website-Weighty Matters.  They will read the on-line text, print out the form and complete the calculations.  They must use calculators.
*Save this information and use it another lesson.  You can create a Weighty Matters class graph.

Objectives
Students will:  Multiply two and three digit numbers
                      Use calculators to multiply two and three digit numbers

Goals: 12.F.2a  6.B.2