July 16, 2007 - Astronaut or Astronomer?

Nicholas has continued to express interest in the stars and planets lately. We have gotten several books out of the library and he has memorized several facts about them. He knows that Pluto is the smallest and Jupiter is the largest, Mercury is the closest to the sun and Pluto is the farthest. He also knows which planets have rings and their order in size. One of the books we got from the library had a page where it explained how to make a mobile of the solar system. We found numerous shapes in the house to that we could make them in order from smallest to largest, and Nicholas studied every page and colored the planets as close as he could to what the pictures looked like. He did a very good job, I was actually surprised at how long he stuck with the project (through all 9 planets). We put little facts on the back so that we can review them periodically. So anyway, for the time being we now have a mobile of our solar system hanging from the ceiling fan above the kitchen table.
(by the way, we do know that they are no longer considering Pluto a planet, but that is a little too deep for a 5 year old who is reading older books from the library, so for now...Pluto is a planet again. )