Space explorers in Reception

 This week we have taken our topic 'Our wonderful world' out of this world and into space. We made a human model of the solar system.

The children enjoyed learning the fundamentals about our solar system using chalk and our friends to model being planets.

We learned that the sun does not move and stays in one place at all times. The children then learned the names of the 8 planets in our solar system and the order in which they are placed from the sun.

'We live on the Earth. It is the third planet from the sun.' - Alex 

'The sun doesn't move, the planets go around it,' - Brian 

We then drew their orbits in chalk on the playground and asked one person to walk along the orbit of each planet showing how they orbit around the sun. Each time we added a planet the solar system got ‘busier’ as each ‘planet’ orbited the sun. The children had to make sure to stay on their path to show each planets strict orbit journey.

We learned that the planets further away from the sun are colder and the ones closer to the sun are warmer.