This project was all initiated by little Bear himself, inspired by a Peppa Pig episode, called 'Masks', in which Edmond Elephant is making a solar system mask with all the planets.
Probably Bear picked on this, because we had another project related to the solar system, given by our kindergarten in the last few weeks and this mask was just visualising it all in a fun way. Recently he was into creating masks from cardboards anyway.
Just a warning, this is not a quick task, we worked on it for a few days, every time a little bit. I love how Montessori kindergarten taught the little Bears at an early age to be patient, to work on things for days on...
So, we started with drawing the sun on a cardboard, which will be the base for the whole mask. For a nice circle we used a lid from the kitchen, then little Bear made the rays of the sun. The more irregular the drawing, the better. Then little Bear cut out the mask. A little help needed at the corners, because cutting the cardboard is not easy. We also measured the distance for the eyes and cut them out.
As the next step, we created the planets. Little Bear remembered, that we had some pompoms, and he was choosing carefully the colour and size of them. Even painted them, so they looked realistic, or at least they were looking like the ones on the picture we downloaded from the internet. Saturn got even its ring from cardboard paper.
This picture of the Solar System gives the opportunity to talk about the planets, their names, how they move around the sun and their size and distance from the sun. The fact that our Earth is one of the planets, it makes all very fascinating for a 6 years old.
If you do not have pompoms at hand, just draw the planets from cardboard or paper, or simply cut out from the picture.
We cut out very thin stripes from the cardboard, to hold the planets on the mask. Except for poor little Pluto, which was downgraded to dwarf planet, so it went on a straw and to be held in the hand as part of the mask - just like with Edmond Elephant.
For the next step we returned to the sun. First fastened a rubber band, which would hold the mask on little Bear's head. To give the yellow colour to the sun, we used magazine cut-outs, as had no craft paper. For the rays we searched for big enough yellow pieces, for the large circle we used collage technique with smaller pieces. It was hard to find so many yellow spots in magazines, therefore we had all sorts of patterns, but they seem to make even more interesting the end result. We have found two orange slice prints, which were perfect to frame the eye of the sun.
As the last step, we attached the planets to the sun, making sure that they are in the right order and their distance from the sun is reflected. To stick the planets we used extra strong tapes.
So, after three days working on it, the solar system is ready to shine! Thanks Edmond Elephant!