Solar System and Big Bangs

Homeschoolers space unit montessori solar system story activity

We have launched into our space unit.
We told the story of the Big Bangs.We illustrated this by filling a clear bag with matter.We used pom poms,tissue paper as the matter and 8 caps to represent the planets in our solar system (I orderd a set of planets for this but it unfortunately did not arrive in time:))
We tell the children that,”Something happened a very very long time ago.There was something called matter.Matter is something that takes up space”.We continue the story of how with all this matter there was enegry and that energy created heat which caused a big explosion.You then pop the bag and pour out the contents onto the dark colored felt.You continue the story as you arrange the sun,a big yellow pom pom and currently we are using caps as the planets.As we arrange the planets we say something about the planets such as:
-Mercury is hot,just like the sun.
-Venus is the brightest.
Earth is home to you and me.
And so forth.
The children love this story and have begun to retell the story to themselves and to each other.I can’t wait to give this lesson again once my planets arrive.