My daughter A is studying the solar system in her science class. Her assignment is to make a model of the planets highlighting their distance from the sun. Here is a super easy and fun way to make a 3-D model.
What you need:
Styrofoam balls in different sizes
Styrofoam ring
Washable paint
glitter
skewers/tooth picks
Gatorade lid
black box
adhesive
hairspray
What you do:
Have your child paint the Styrofoam balls. It takes a few days as the paint needs to dry completely before you can handle. Some planets have more then one color and you will need to let each layer dry before painting the next color.
The Sun- we mixed yellow and orange to get a bright, firey color
Mercury- gray…mix black and white to get the perfect color
Venus- light yellow…mix white and yellow
Earth- Paint blue, let dry, paint green for the land
Mars- Paint red, let dry, paint a few brown spot on it
Jupiter- Paint tan…we mixed yellow, white, and brown to get the perfect color. Let it dry and paint dark brown vertical stripes. Let the stripes dry and paint a red splotch on backside.
Saturn- Orange with a brown ring.
Uranus- Turquoise and grey paint mixed together
Neptune- Indigo–mix blue and purple together
Paint the bottom art of the box black. When the paint dries sprinkle silver glitter on it and hairspray the glitter. The hairspray will ensure the glitter stays put. You will need to glue the Sun to the box. Do not use adhesive directly on the Sun. I learned the hard way. E-6000 is great but it eats the foam. My daughter’s sun ended up with a huge hole on the bottom. It was a drastic emergency at 11pm the night before the project was due. I had to stick a Gatorade cap into the ball to cover the hole. Using E-6000 glue the cap to the box. Let adhesive dry 24 hours and attach the planets in order to the sun using the skewers.
I couldn’t help but think something is missing…Poor Pluto!
The Dole Whip Press 