Saturn's Ring

What shape are Saturn's rings? Circles! We created art using big circles, little circles, all sizes and colors!

 "Saturn"

Saturn's rings are made of rocks and ice (sometimes pieces as big as a car!)  We didn't have ice, so we used colored sugar to represent it. 

I'm not sure why, but salt and sugar has a tendency to make our paint melt and look quite messy.  But it's more about the process than the product!

Colors of Neptune

Neptune is one of my personal favorites! Look at those colors!


To begin - we brainstormed what will happen when we mix oil with blue paint (liquid watercolor).  Then we added glitter for effect!   

We decided to use vegetable oil to create the affect of the translucent Gas Giant!

The paper plates turned out beautiful!  

Painting with oil is a mistake that I have made more than a few times.  It's actually a real bad idea.  Not only will it never dry (it is greasy forever so don't send it home!), it drips on other art (leaving greasy stains on everything on the drying rack), and will start to smell quickly.

Mars Dough

Mars Dough

Ingredients:

1 C Water

3 C Flour

1 1/2 C Salt

1/4 C Oil

Red Food Color

Cinnamon

Mars Dough! More fun than your regular play dough!  Not only was it great for making the largest planetary volcano (found on Mars) and the largest canyon in the solar system - but it makes some awesome aliens, too!

The Colors of Mars

Mars - the Red Planet!

Our open-ended art project today was painting with the colors of Mars: Brownish Red

Not only are these adorable - they smell delicious!

Planet Mobiles

Being a teacher means having to make the tough choices.  For me, this meant deciding to teach Pluto as a non-planet (aka Dwarf Planet).  I spent the first twenty years of my life believing in 9 planets in our Solar System, only to have to teach 8.  Anyways...

These are open-ended Planet projects, so the children chose their own shapes and colors to create their own planets.  This child really liked rocky planets:

 This child got a little more accurate:

Earth's Gravity

Gravity is awesome because it makes total sense.  There is an invisible force on Earth that holds us to the ground.  When we jump up, we fall back down.  Don't believe it? Try it.

We did try it.  We tried it with our bodies, with books, balls, and a dozen other things the kids brought to circle.  It was so much fun we decided to test gravity outside by trying to pop our balloon up into the air and make it stay.

 Gravity may have won - but we had more fun!

Moon Art

After learning about the surface of the moon, we devised our own mix to recreate the rocky, crater pocketed moon!

We used white paint splashed into a dash of flour, mixed until lumpy but paintable.

 After getting the surface painted, we used different size circles to create our own craters.

 Viola! Adorable moon art!