Earth’s Orbit Misconception

This past week we started our unit on SPACE and have been having so much fun learning about the Sun, Earth, and the moon.

(I will be posting pictures throughout our unit so check in often to see how we’re doing.)

To begin our unit I decided to tackle one of the biggest MISCONCEPTIONS that children have…. believing that the Sun travels, or obits, around the Sun.

Can you blame them? I mean I know that every morning on my drive to school I see the Sun rising in the sky. So, I can understand why children believe that. So I decided to tackle this task by creating our very own models which you can download for FREE here. First I introduced my kiddos to some wonders about the Sun, the Earth, and the moon and we discussed how the Earth and the moon really travel. We then began our project. We started by coloring a picture of the Sun, the Earth, and the moon. While coloring we looked at the different sizes of each and spoke about how LARGE the Sun really is.

Next, we cut everything out, including the 2 rectangles that would be used to help us orbit our Earth and moon.

  

Then came time to glue our tiny moon down. Many students were shocked at how much smaller the moon was when compared to the Sun! I kept hearing… “It’s so tiny!” :0)

The next step I did, even though you could have your students puncture the paper with their own pencils. Then came time to assemble all of our pieces together.

The Earth goes first, so that it can orbit around the Sun.

Next, goes the moon so that it can orbit the Earth.

The last thing we did after having a blast orbiting the Earth and the moon was to explain our learning in writing.

What I also loved about this activity was that it was big enough for the students to manipulate themselves, yet small enough that when we were finished with the activity they could paperclip their model to their science notebooks. We even glued our writing activity to a page so that everything could be kept in one place.

The only recommendation that I would give when completing this activity is that although you can print the pattern on regular paper, cardstock or construction paper works best. Especially if you are going to have a lot of orbiting going on in your classroom!

If you do use this activity with your kiddos, please let me know how it went. I’d love to hear from you!

XOXO,