Solar System with Button Planets

My son thinks anything space-related is cool. I have to agree. We BOTH learned a lot and had a blast with this science craft.

While shopping at our local craft store, I found this plastic canvas PVC circle in the needlework section. I knew right away what to do with it. Make a solar system model!

Supplies:

9.5 inch plastic canvas needlework circle (cost = less than $2)

Spray paint (blue or black)

White paint pen

9 buttons

Embroidery thread the same color as your spray paint

Sticker paper (or paper and glue)

Needle

The day before we got started, I spray painted the needlework circle with black spray paint.

I grabbed Seymour Simon’s Planets Around the Sun book and asked my son to tag along to the fabric store. 

Simon’s book has a matrix in the back showing the order of the planets in our solar system as they orbit the sun. It shows the relative size and color of the planets.

Oops! Our Venus and Earth buttons are in the wrong order in this photo.

At the store, I pulled out the book and showed my son the matrix. We picked out buttons that looked like each of the planets, paying attention to size and color. (The store was running a phenomenal sale on buttons, which is good because my spare buttons are boxed up in the basement as we remodel it.)

The following day, we read Going Around the Sun: Some Planetary Fun by Marianne Berkes and got started making our solar system model. Each planet has a rhyme of its own that incorporates the planet's order in our solar system. It's super fun and beautifully illustrated.

To start, I gave my son a page of concentric circles I’d made and printed on cardstock. Click on the picture below to download a PDF of this page.

Each of these circles represented the planets’ orbits. (There is no circle for Neptune, as that planet’s orbit would be the outer rim of our needlework circle.)

He cut the largest circle on the line, positioned it on and in the center of the needlework circle, and traced the outer edge with a white paint pen. When done, he cut the next largest circle, placed it in the center of the needlework circle, and traced around it too. This continued until the orbit of all the planets were represented on the needlework circle.

Now he got the buttons out and starting with the sun, used the needle and thread to attach them to the hoop. We made knots and clipped the excess thread after sewing each button.

When they were all attached, I printed a page of labels on sticker paper, cut each, and he attached them next to the respective planet (or the sun).

Bonus: Multiplication/Division Fact Family Die

Several blog followers requested a multiplication/division version of the addition/subtraction math fact family 19-sided die I created for my son. Who am I to say no? So to all my followers working with kids on these more advanced math skills, click, print, fold, glue, and get rollin'!

Click on the picture to download.

Me in the Four Seasons

Spring is upon us and what a glorious season it’s already been!

To celebrate the changing of the seasons, I decided it was time to explore why the seasons change with my son.

I relied on Melissa Stewart’s book Why Do the Seasons Change? to help me explain how the tilt of the earth spinning on its axis and its position relative to the sun determined the season.

According to Stewart’s book, “When the North Pole is tipped closest to the sun, it is summer for people living in the Northern Hemisphere.” The opposite is true when the North Pole is tipped away from the sun; it’s winter. “During spring and autumn, Earth is tipped only a little,” she goes on to explain.

With this understanding, I started my son on an activity to record what he's observed during the four seasons.

What you need:

Writing sheet and spinner wheel

1 brad

Scissors (we used both fancy scallop-edged scrapbooking scissor and a regular pair)

Pencil

Colored pencils and/or markers

Picture of your child (preferably a full-body shot that’s a little bigger than 3 inches tall)

Download a PDF of the spinner wheel template and Me in the 4 Seasons worksheet here.

I gave my son the circle page I created and he used the scrapbooking scissors to cut it out as close to the outer edge as possible. Then I poked a hole in the center with the brad.

Then I had him fill each quadrant with drawings characteristic of the seasons. The pictures were pretty typical – trees of amber and orange in fall, naked trees and snow in winter, green trees and bright sun in spring – except for his depiction of summer, which was a balloon bouquet (he has a summer birthday). HA!

Next, I cut out his photograph, being careful to stay as close to his body as possible. I also cut out the half-circle window on the "Me in the 4 Seasons" worksheet I printed. I poked a hole in this page too, where indicated.

Now, I put two dots of glue (on the head and feet) to attach my son’s picture atop the half-circle window.

My son threaded the brad through the "Me in the 4 Seasons" worksheet and his spinner wheel. The circle is slightly larger, so it sticks out the one side of the page, making it easy to turn.

My son was fascinated with spinning it to see the pictures he’d drawn appear behind him!

Before it was time to start making dinner, my son wrote a little about each of the seasons.

Andy Warhol-inspired Printmaking

There are lots of people that never develop an appreciation for Andy Warhol’s work. If you’re one of those people, you should really read Uncle Andy’s, a fiction book by James Warhola, the famous artist’s nephew. While my son and I really liked the story and the whimsical illustrations, what I love the absolute most is the message – art is everywhere!

After we read this amazing book, we read an excerpt from Bonnie Christensen’s book. (We would have read more but my son was too curious about the supplies I’d set out for our art activity.) I cut to the chase and read the page that explained how Warhol used a commercial printing process to mass produce paintings in his studio, which became known as the Factory.

Then it was time to make our pop art-esque prints! We used a process I saw on Avie Designs’ site (thank you, Pinterest!).

What you need:

Clear household contact paper

An embroidery hoop

Thin fabric (I picked curtain sheers fabric)

Paint (we used craft acrylic; if you’re printing on a textile, use fabric paint)

Paper or fabric to print on

Scissors

Fine-tip sharpie marker

Simple shape to trace and cut out (my son picked one from spraypaintstencils.com)

Old credit card or empty gift card

Step 1

Place one layer of your fabric inside the embroidery hoop and tighten the screw, making sure the fabric is taut. Trim off the excess fabric.

Step 2

Trace the picture that you’ll be screenprinting onto the contact paper with a sharpie marker (mark your lines on the paper side, not the plastic side).

Step 3

Cut out the shape to make your stencil. Peel off the paper and lay the plastic sticky-side up on your work surface.

Step 4

Position your hoop over the stencil. Apply light pressure to make sure that the fabric adheres to the plastic, paying particular attention to the edges of the design.

Step 5

Position the hoop over a piece of paper. Squeeze out some paint above the design. Using a credit card or used gift card as a squeegee, apply pressure and scrape the paint across the design, repeating until it’s totally covered.

Step 6

Carefully lift the hoop from the paper. Ooh and awe. (We sure did!)

My son picked four different colored construction papers. When he lifted the hoop off the paper, he was just as excited as the first time. The results were awesome!

IMPORTANT: We did this activity twice. The first time we put the plastic stencil INSIDE the hoop. Paint bled underneath the contact paper stencil each time we dragged the card across. The secret to success is putting the contact paper stencil on the OUTSIDE of the hoop (steps 3 and 4), so the plastic made contact with the paper.

Math Fact Family Roll & Write

Repetition is a GREAT way to help children learn, but if you’re asking them to do something over and over again, it better be fun. Since my spelling word Roll & Write activity was such a hit with my son (and followers, too!), I thought another Roll & Write to practice math fact families would be equally well-received.

I was right; my son loved it!!

How this activity came to be ...

The elementary school my son attends uses the Everyday Math curriculum and for weeks now, his teacher has been sending home fact triangles for my son to cut out and practice. The triangles have a number at each point that can be ordered to create two addition and two subtraction problems.

I’m not going to lie. I can’t really tell if my son is “practicing.” And truthfully, aside from their nifty triangular shape, it’s basically just a flash card. Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinking? Borrrrrriiiiiing!

It was sort of a personal mission to find a way for my son to practice these fact triangles. So I made a die – not just any die, but one with triangular sides - an icosahedren!

Download the template I made here, print on heavyweight cardstock, cut it out, score all the lines with the back of a butter knife and a straight edge, fold, and glue the flaps. That’s all there is to it.

My son marvelled at the die I made. 

Download a PDF of the die template and 2-page recording worksheet here.

I gave him a pencil and recording sheet and told him to get rollin’. When the triangle on top of the die displayed a 10, 7, and 3, he wrote the following problems down:

7 + 3 = 10

10 - 7 = 3

3 + 7 = 10

10 - 3 = 7

When the worksheet was done, so was my son.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Math triangles practiced at last!