Thursday, November 19, 2015

Pumpkin Solar System

This year we carved our first pumpkin to enter the Science Themed Pumpkin Carving Contest at my kid's school. We had recently visited Santiago's Planetarium and I wanted to teach him more about the Solar System!

So we used a pumpkin for the sun, uncooked salt dough for planets, *lot* of metallic paints & a *lot* of glitter! (You can find some other interesting Preschool Solar System Projects on my pinterest board)


The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough




We first got a huge-ass pumpkin which positively killed my limbs with the ad-hoc carving! He had a blast painting it though! Tried testing yellow and orange to see what'll look best as the sun. The answer was : Neither did! (Gold & Glitter looked *way* better!)

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough

The second pumpkin was expensive  but very smooth to carve! I cut out long vertical strips (and short ones on the top) so enable some candle light to shine though. Wasn't necessary though, since it contest was in day time ! 

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough

Kneaded some dough with flour, salt & a little water and rolled 'em into balls with relative sizes. Left the painting for my kid: metallic colors for all , while I concentrated on drizzling enough glitter on the sun.

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough


The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough


The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough

Glued black chart paper (construction paper) on a thin wooden plank  and drew 8 orbits with a white crayon. Placed the sun and planets and sprinkled a lot of silver glitter dust to make the night nice & starry! 

I wanted to poke golden pipe cleaners onto the pumpkin as sun rays but with the few numbers I had, it looked too scanty. May look better of you've got a crap load of them. 

(oh and btw, we won the contest!)



The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough


The pumpkin and balls of dough had to be tossed out in 3 days, so we substituted them with Pom Poms. Having 3 sizes helped! (Btw , I saw a cool set thermacol/ styrofoam solar system shapes in the mall!)

While plotting various pom pom planets on the orbits, we discussed how long each takes to orbit the sun. Earth takes 1 year, while Neptune takes 165!

(A ready ref for you: Mercury 88 days/ Venus 224 days/ Earth 1 yr/ Mars 2 yrs/ Jupiter 12 yrs/ Saturn 30 yrs/Uranus 84 yrs/ Neptune 165 and pluto 248...these are round figures of course)

The related book that we read alongside was Usborne Beginner's The Solar System. I love this series and makes perfect sense if you have a project or trip to accompany it.

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough
Loved how he made a little smiley face in the spelling mistake where he accidentally wrote O :)

 
The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough


The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough
On our trip to the Planetarium which is in the University of Santiago premises (Which although turned out fun for him, was very boring for us, as it was a *lot* of non-stop talking in Spanish!) 
The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough
Another highlight was the large sized floor puzzles of the solar system in the Planetarium. Sadly we couldn't finish it because our show started!

The Practical Mom: Solar System with Pumpkin & Dough





Until later! Stay in touch!



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8 comments:

  1. This is such a neat way to show the size and scale of the planets! #thoughtfulspot

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  2. I love your ideas! Thank you for sharing with us at Brag About It!
    ~Laurie

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  3. This looks like an awesome project!! Thanks for sharing at the Thoughtful spot Blog Hop! :)

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  4. What a fab idea! Love it #parentingpinitparty

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  5. That is adorable!! What a great way to make a project! Thank you for sharing with us at the #HomeMattersParty

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  6. Thanks for all your lovely comments ladies! :)

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  7. So fun and creative, I love it! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
    hugs,
    Jann

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  8. I love this! Thank you for linking up with us at Hip Homeschool Moms!

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