My stepdaughter is in fourth grade and has to do a project on the solar system. She is working now on the written part, but we also have to help her build a 3D model of the planets, the sun and the asteroid belt. Her teacher wants the model to be creative, not just the usual one... we have no idea what to do. Does anyone have any suggestions? We already came up with a solar system last year for her brother, but being the same teacher we don't want to create the same model again. What we did was, we took foam balls and cut them in half. Then my stepson plastered them and colored them in the appropriate colors. Afterwards, my husband used the hot glue gun to glue them on a piece of cardboard on which my stepson drew the asteroid belt and labeled the different things he had to have on there. Well, I would really appreciate any suggestions of either how we could build it or link to websites that give suggestions. Thank you.
I really appreciated everybody's help. I loved everybody's idea; however, because of time and specific requirements to build the model we came up with something slightly different. We created a pop up book and the teacher loved it! Today my stepdaughter brought the project back home and the grade was a big 110! Thank you again for your suggestions.
last year my son was in 4th grade, we decided to be REALLY creative and used round fruit for the planets and had a canaloupe for the sun.....just idea, my son's teacher LOVED it. GOOD LUCK!
You can take different size craft hoops and glue the styrofoam bals on there(cut in half and make depression for hoop width and then glue around the hoop). I did one like this several years ago. Or you can make it like a baby mobile/ Use a coat hanger and order the planets from one side to the other. I hope this helps some. Have a great day
when I was in 4th grade that was my project, and what Id id was I got a huge box and painted and hung the styrofoam balls from the top of the box closed it up and in one end cut a hole in and incerted a paper towel roll in, mounting a light next to the roll so you could see inside the box when looking through the tube it looked like you were looking through a telescope. First prize at the science fair that year.
oh the light was in the position the sun would be in
I say search online for some pictures and put your own twist to it by what you use.
How about using various building materials you could get at Home Depot? Lots of shapes and textures in the electrical and plumbing departments. You could spray paint them just like you would the styrofoam materials. My oldest is only in 3rd grade (we haven't done the solar system thing yet) so I do not know if this idea is original or not.
I like the veggie idea :) You can also make shooting stars, small exploding stars, a satellite or two and space junk just to make it look a bit more exciting and creative. If you can, make a sun with jumping sunspots and flares. That would be cool! Use neon paints and blacklight effects. You could even make a Man In The Moon with a big smiling face.
Let's see,
YOu could put it in a tank of some sort to create a floating effect.
