Lessons 4-5 Mercury and Venus

Lessons 4-11: Art Discovery Through the Planets

These next lessons will teach your child a few facts about each planet, their order from the sun, and a fun new art technique. These techniques can be reused for other art projects so remember to note the ones that your child enjoys to pull out again on a rainy day to expand their self-expression and meet their sensory needs. This section is meant to extend over several days. Your child can work on 1-2 planets at a time depending on their speed, interest level and your time constraints.

Play Table: If you have the space in your home we recommend leaving out the play table for as long as possible for your child to return to throughout the process. Ideas for how to switch the play table up to keep their interest will be found later on in the lesson plan.

Display Recommendations: We recommend displaying these planets somewhere in your space throughout the unit to refer back to as references and to show your child that you value the work that they do. You can simply hang them up as is, or affix them to black paper for an outer-space background. You can even offer some start stickers to your child to add decoration to the black paper.

The Why: Hands-on experiences help solidify information in the brain. As a young learner your child experiences the world through their senses. These lessons aim to engage their senses of touch and inspire their imaginations as they learn facts about the planets.

To Prep: Cut out 8 circles of varying sizes (Jupiter is largest, Mercury is smallest)  onto watercolor paper. Write the name for each planet on the back to help keep track of the right sizes. Each planet will require different art materials to make since each planet is different.

• Each planet begins by your child cutting out your pre-drawn circle.

Scissors Pro Tips:

• Have child safe scissors available

Teach your child about scissors safety:

• They should always be sitting or standing in one spot when using scissors.
• Hold the scissors by the silver blades when walking.
• Walk slowly and carefully and watch where you are going when holding scissors. 
• The thumb should be facing up toward the ceiling and the other fingers should be facing the floor. 
• Always cut away from your body.
• Turn the paper instead of the scissors to get around corners and curves.
• This is an important motor activity that can take some children a while to master. Remember to be patient and redirect your child gently to keep them from forming incorrect habits.

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Lesson 4: Mars: Puffy Painting

Supplies:
-Shaving Cream
-Liquid Glue

-Paint or Food Coloring
-Paint Brush

To Prep: Make the puffy paint recipe with your child. Mix together equal parts shaving cream and liquid glue. Add food coloring or tempera paint in black or gray to make it look like Mercury.

For Added Fun: Check out the NASA radio station on the free NASA app. Listen along to the same radio station the astronauts on the International Space Station are hearing while working on your planet art.

Directions for Children

• Re-read the Mercury page in Me and My Place in Space. Mercury looks much like our moon and has many craters. Option to add some fun facts to a science wall or notebook.
• Let child use the puffy paint mixture to design their planet. 

                                                                       

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Lesson 5: Venus: Finger Painting

Supplies:
-Paint in shades of yellow, brown, and white

Directions for Children

• Go back and read about Venus in Me and My Place in Space.
• Offer the opportunity to finger paint to your child. If they would prefer not to touch the paint they can wear gloves or use a brush. Get in there and play yourself on your own tray to encourage exploration, but don’t feel that you have to push it.

Pro Tip: Many children will have the desire to continue mixing and spreading the paint simply for the fun of it and will end up with an all brown planet. Allow them time to play with the paints on a washable surface such as a tray till their heart's content first before starting on the planet circle.

Discussion Guide: As you play you can point out that you notice you can see many different colors if you only mix it a little bit. The point is not that you want your child’s art to be perfected in any way, but merely to introduce the idea of how applying different techniques can yield a different result. If they want their planet to be all brown then by all means let them have at it!