Introducing kids to science

I feel it is so important to introduce children to as much as possible. I have been adamant on making sure my children are smart and well educated. As a daughter of teachers I have always known that education does not start in the schools, but in the home. 

Currently, my 3 year old daughter is obsessed with the planets and stars. I am incredibly happy about this development. It started with constellations, she was given a Twilight Turtle for her birthday a year ago and loved it so much. After learning a few of the constellations, she wanted to know more about the moon.

We began teaching her about the moon, the cycle and how it rotates. That opened her mind to the planets. I downloaded NASA's free app on the Ipad and she plays with it every day! She can name all of the planets and is currently learning the order they go in. She will even tell people her favorite planet is Saturn because of the rings, even explaining that the rings are made out of rock and ice. 

Yesterday for a fun craft I decided to combine her love of the planets with art. We made a (not to scale) solar system poster for her bedroom. 

Items needed-

Roll of white paper

Construction paper (of different colors)

Glue

Scissors

Different sized circles to trace

We chose our colored paper, drew our circles (Jupiter took two pieces of paper), I cut them out, then I had my daughter glue them to the paper in the order they go in. 

Result:

(Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth with Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and the dwarf planet Pluto) I understand Pluto has not been a planet for about 6 years, however NASA still has it on their Ipad solar system and my daughter likes to include it.