Solar System Activities and Free Solar System Printables

Are your kids learning about the Solar System?  Here are two fun projects my youngest daughter did recently. I have added directions and related printables to our free Solar System Packet. Plus, I also added in a couple of new solar system worksheet pages. You’ll find our 25-page FREE Solar System Unit down below. 🙂

The first project was to create the planets to scale with play dough.  We made a LOT of homemade play dough (4 batches, I think) to make this really project really make an impression!

I made a direction sheet that the kids could follow to create the giant dough-planets you see below!  I also included the homemade play dough recipe that we used. You’ll find that in the updated Solar System packet below. 🙂

The second project we did was a painting project.  I handed the kids a large piece of butcher paper. They cut out the (large planets) and glued them in order (like you see in the picture above).  Then they used Styrofoam balls and painted them to look like the planets on their page.  I provided sparkly pipe cleaners that they used to make the rings of Saturn and Uranus.

I added those large planet printables to the packet as well.

There is another project my kids LOVED and is worth mentioning… it was a Solar System Kit recommend by some friends. We got a hands-on kit called the 4M Solar System Planetarium (affiliate link) from Amazon. This is one of those projects we STILL have hanging around! 🙂

I had a reader reach out to me and ask me to provide a couple of the pages with the NASA images (that are also provided with the cute clipart images).  Be sure to pick and choose only the pages you want to print. 🙂  Now you’ve got both options available (meaning both the cute-clipart and the NASA images).

Here’s the link you’ve been waiting for… the newly updated Solar System Unit:

FREE Download: Solar System Packet – Update 2

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These are affiliate links (If you do purchase any of these books, thanks bunches for supporting our blog!):

• The Solar System by Howard Trammel (Good for ages 7-11)
• The Solar System by Laura Hamilton Waxman (Good for ages 7-11)
• The Planets: (Out in Space) by Martha Rustad (Good for ages 4-6)
• Planets Around the Sunby Seymour Simon (Good for ages 4-6)
• Planet Earth/Inside Out by Gail Gibbons
• Real Science 4 Kids (Homeschool Science Curriculum we have used a lot over the years.)
• Focus On Middle School Astronomy Student Textbook, Student Textbook (homeschool curriculum book)

Constellations:

If you plan to go into detail about the constellations, your kids might enjoy this book (for ages 4-8), but my kids enjoyed (ages 8, 10, 12): Constellations, A Field Guide for Young Stargazers.

If your kids are a little older or are avid young astronomers, they might enjoy Child’s Introduction to the Night Sky: The Story of the Stars, Planets, and Constellations–and How You Can Find Them in the Sky. (Probably for ages 10+ unless really into astronomy.)

You might also enjoy this board game (recommended for 7+) called Constellations (affiliate link) which helps kids learn about the stars and star types. ?  We bought this and my kids have really enjoyed it! (We’re doing that in conjunction with our study of Greek mythology & the the myths about the constellations.

You might also be interested in this Where I Live Activity Packet

FREE Astronomy Worksheets for Middle School: I also made some astronomy materials I for my older two.  We talked about topics such as the layers of the Sun, the Sun’s atmosphere, solar flares and sun spots. Plus, we talked about the planetary orbits (and going into quite some detail about ellipses and Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion. And, we talked about asteroids, comets and a few other things. You’ll find those free resources at the link below.  ? ~Liesl

Website Resources: If you are looking for some websites for kids to learn about the planets of the solar system, you might want to check out these:

• Of course, NASA’s page on the planet of the solar system should be your first stop. ? There’s lot to explore there!
• We used this website for talking about inner vs. outer planets. The chart was really handy.
• PlanetFacts.org has information about each of the planets

Hands-On Activities for younger kids, you might want to check out these posts (these take you WAY back in time here at the Homeschool Den!), but your kids might enjoy some of these hands-on activities:

• Earth Science Unit — Gravity
• Earth Science — Gravity: the planets, moon and space
• Astronomy Unit: Refraction, Vacuum, Saturn’s Rings
• Astronomy Unit: Inner and Outer Planets, The Asteroid Belt
• Astronomy Unit: The Moon (Day 1)
• Astronomy Unit: The Moon (Day 2)
• Phases of the Moon Activity: Homemade Oreo Cookie Recipe (Yum!!)

You might also want to check out our other Earth Science and Physical Science Units:

You can check out the Earth Science Page here. Our units are sold in a bundle or sold separately.  (The other links below will take you to some of the individual posts about these units.)

Earth Science Packet: Layers of the Earth, Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, 4 Types of Mountains and More! (This packet has been updated recently and is now  over 150 pages!)

In our Earth Science Unit where we talked about

• Earth’s and the Solar System
• the layers of the Earth
• Geography Terms: Earth’s Axis and the Seasons; Latitude Longitude
• Plate Movement Worksheets, Types of Plate Boundaries
• the 3 types of faults
• Earthquakes (we made our own earthquake shake table!)
• 4 Types of Mountains Worksheets, 4 types of Volcanoes Worksheets, Parts of a Volcano Worksheet
• plus we did over a dozen hands-on activities (and instructions are included)

Atmosphere: We also spent quite a bit of time studying Earth’s atmosphere when we did our weather unit a couple of years ago. We reviewed the layers of the atmosphere as well. Click here to see the newly updated Layers of the Atmosphere Packet:

Rocks and Minerals Unit

In our Rocks & Minerals Unit, we went into a lot of detail about the types of minerals, identifying minerals – crystalline structures, the characteristics of minerals (color, streak, luster, hardness), the Mohs Hardness Scale,  how rocks are formed, weathering, erosion, the lithification process, different types of igneous, sedimentary & metamorphic rocks and more. Learn terms like weathering, erosion, compacting, cementing, luster, vitreous, clast and more! See our Earth Science BUNDLE options here: (Units are also sold separately)

Recently, we  spent time learning about Earth’s Magnetosphere. We spent time learning about magnets and magnetic spheres, talked about Earth’s magnetosphere and then spent time learning how animals navigate by sensing Earth’s magnetic fields.  (That portion was really neat because many of the latest discoveries have come in the past five years!) You can find out more at this post:  Magnetism Unit on Magnetic Fields, the Magnetosphere, and Animal Migration

You might also want to check out some of our other packets including

The Big Animal BUNDLE includes 8 packets.   1) Animal Unit, 2) World Animals Packet, 3) Rainforest Packet, 4) Life Cycles Packet, 5) Winter Packet – plus several mini units 6) the Cicadas Packet and 7) the Chameleon Packet. 8) the Wolves Mini-Unit.

These Animal Units can each be purchased individually as well.

• World Animal Unit (60+ Pages)
• Animal Unit – Animal Characteristics, Animal Classification, Vertebrates-Invertebrates and more!
• Rainforest Packet
• Earth Science Unit
• States of Matter Unit
• Simple Machines Unit
• and much more!

See Our Store for more details:

You might also be interested in these helpful (free) resources:

Creating a Homeschool Curriculum: Kindergarten – Grade 1

 

Creating Your Homeschool Curriculum: Grades 2-3, Resource Guide

Creating Your Homeschool Curriculum Grade 4-5 — Free Resource Guide

Homeschool Science Unit Checklist for Elementary and Middle School

These are the science units/topics I hope to cover from K-Grade 8.

See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page! Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter. You might also want to check out some of our resources pages above (such as our Science, Language Arts, or History Units Resource Pages) which have links to dozens of posts.  Don’t forget to check out Our Store as well. ~Liesl

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase. If you do make a purchase, thank you so much for supporting the Homeschool Den! ?