Galaxies, Calea-Lactee, solar systems and Co.

There are so many things bustling about in the universe and it seems like a huge chaos... where should I start to explain, what will catch the kids`attention?

Starting with theories and talks is always a big mistake, so I decided that we`re going to create our own planets of papier-mâché. 

Until we had all layers on the balloons and the whole coat was dry, almost two weeks had passed and the kids were moaning when the planets would finally be done (and I heard a lot of times: "What are we going to do with them - can we play football with them?"). But despite all doubts and some failures because of moldiness the result was quite stunning.

Besides playing football, we illustrated a living solar system with our models. Every child chose a planet it wanted to represent and had to arrange with the other children the right order. Then everybody got an instruction by me how to circle the sun, like "Merkur, you have to move very fast" or "Neptune, you`re the slowest of all planets".

I hope that with this activity I could give them an idea of gravitation and how it rules the behaviour of our planets.

But to point out that there is more than our solar system, a bit of talking was necessary, so I tried to explain them with some pictures and all words contained in my modest Romanian vocabulary, that there are infinitely many stars in universe, that galaxies are an accumulation of many billion of stars and that the Milky Way (Rom. "Calea-Lactee") can be seen in the night sky as a stripe.

LG, miri