Our Solar System

Our second grade students learned about phases of the moon with their teachers which inspired them to do an art project about the solar system. They learned that the solar system is full of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and many exciting objects.
There are four smaller inner planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. There are four outer planets, the gas giants: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The ninth planet, which scientists have decided to call something else is Pluto. (Most of us adults still call Pluto a planet, but our children will grow up knowing there are 8 major planets and many, many smaller planetoids in our solar system).
The two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium gas, the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are composed largeley of ices, such as water, ammonia and methane, and often referred to as the "ice giants".
These gasses, ices, and liquids make the planets very colorful. Our second grade students also studied phases of matter (liquid, solid, gas) in science class so this art project really helped them to visualize these concepts in an exciting way. Our students used scientific pictures as art references to draw and color their planets. They used oil pastels and colored pencils to depit the bright colors.