Push Light Planets

I always try to follow the interests of my son when planning fun activities.  My hopes are to inspire him to delve deeper into learning about things he already loves.  He has been interested in the planets/solar system for months now.  He even requested Saturn (his favorite planet) as one of the paintings on his bedroom wall. 
 

He requests this book at bed time quite often….

This is the book we read a lot - and used for inspiration.

This morning I thought of using push lights to paint and illuminate the planets!  Dollar Tree sells push lights, but in my experience – they stink.  I bought this pack of 4 (small) push lights at Walmart for under $4.00.  The batteries that come with them are horrible, and we had to replace them the next day.

I bought 3 packs of these

I used glass paint (also purchased at Walmart for under $2.oo a jar).  Be aware that slathering on too much paint may cause the push lights to stick after dry.  Ours did not, but I can see how it could happen.  We also discovered that glass paint apparently doesn't adhere well to plastic.  When we pushed the lights to turn them on/off, some of the paint was peeling off.  I sealed it with Mod Podge and it hasn't happened since.

Paint

I initiated this activity by asking my son if he would like to help me put batteries in the new push lights.  He played an active role in setting up the entire activity.  We took the time to flip through each page of the book to see which planet he wanted to paint first – Jupiter.

The invitation.  My son played an active role in setting this up.  We paper clipped opened the book for inspiration.

Painting Jupiter.  I asked him why he was painting the sides and he said "because Mommy, the whole planet has color, not just the top".  I stand corrected.

We talked about the colors in each planet, he chose the corresponding paints, and he counted out the number of brushes needed.  He painted one planet at a time at his own pace.

Mars

Saturn

Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter - completed, dried, and illuminated!  Cool!

Earth

Venus.  The OCD in me wanted to tell him that the black on the left side of the planet in the picture is a shadow....but this is about so much more than "doing it right".   I think he did an amazing job!

Neptune

 Here are the 6 planets we have done so far.  My favorite parts of this activity was the dialogue it inspired, watching my son become so engaged in painting (something he RARELY does), and seeing him glow with pride.

painting Uranus with Daddy

Painting Mercury

Painting Mercury

Painting Pluto (and yes, Im aware that there has been some controversy as to whether Pluto is really a planet.)

The Solar System through the eyes of a 3 year old.  He still wants to get a big push light to paint the sun.

AND FINALLY.....THE SUN....

Its been about a month since we created the planets with push light and today he was finally ready to add the sun.  I asked him if he would like to use his book as reference and he said, "No thank you.  I know what the sun looks like".

Painting the sun

Beautiful sun

"Let's count them."

The sun and planets

This is how my son set them up when we were talking about the sun being the center of the solar system and all of the planets revolving around it.  AWESOME!!

MORE IDEAS:  

·         Buy different sized push lights to really represent the size of each planet.

·         Add glow in the dark stars to the wall with the completed, illuminated planets.

·         Encourage reading by using a label maker to label the back side of each planet with its name.

·         Encourage further reading and knowledge by printing fun facts about each planet onto sticker paper sheets and then adding them to the back of each light.

- AK (MESE, MECD)