While watching the Planets Song (Animated Music Video), students learn about the order of planets in our solar system as well as cool facts about each planet.
While listening to the Planets Song (MP3), students learn about the order of planets in our solar system as well as cool facts about each planet.
Eight worlds, one amazing system
In 6th grade, students go beyond naming the planets. They compare them: the four inner rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) and the four outer gas and ice giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). They learn how gravity keeps the planets in orbit around the sun, why planets farther away take longer to orbit, and how size, temperature and atmosphere differ. Many build a scale model and discover how huge the distances really are. The click moment is when kids realize that if Earth were a marble, Neptune would be blocks away!
Planets are a big topic. These moves help 6th graders organize what they learn.
Play the planets song to lock in the order from the sun. Then challenge students to add one fact per planet. Once the order is easy, there's more room for real science.
Why it works: words set to a repeating melody are easier to recall than the same words spoken (Wallace, 1994).
Try it withPlanets Song (Animated Music Video)SongsOpen it →Use toilet paper or a long hallway to build a distance model. Students calculate where each planet goes. Seeing the empty space between planets is a jaw-dropper.
Why it works: kids understand an idea best when they touch it, then draw it, then write it, the order the U.S. Department of Education recommends for elementary math.
Try it withPlanets Song (MP3)SongsOpen it →Mix up planet fact cards and have students sort them into inner and outer planets, then explain the pattern. Comparing makes the differences meaningful.
Why it works: shuffled practice teaches kids to choose the right strategy, not just repeat one, and it improved test scores in research (Rohrer and Taylor, 2007).
Try it withPlanets Song (MP3)SongsOpen it →Teacher favorites right now: Planets Song (Animated Music Video) and Planets Song (MP3).
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, starting from the sun.
The inner planets are small and rocky. The outer planets are much larger and made mostly of gas and ice, and they all have rings.
In 2006, scientists reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet because it hasn't cleared other objects out of its orbit.
The sun's gravity pulls on the planets, while their forward motion keeps them from falling in. Together, this keeps them moving in orbits.
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