Apologia: Mercury

We are using Apologia's "Exploring Creation with Astronomy" for Science this year.  It's an awesome study that includes evidence of God in our Solar System.  We also use portions of the Junior Notebook from Apologia.  I hope this provides you with a few ideas and saves you some planning time:)

 
 Mercury!

 Activity shelf #1

"God Made Outer Space" (I think Nana picked this one up in the dollar section of Walmart?)

She also sent us this model of the Solar System.

I made up this little matching game (see below). 

 

 Match the number to the correct box. (Click here for the free printable version!)

The basket contains all of the cards we've studied so far (the Sun and Mercury).

(The larger cards are from Baby Einstein). Scroll down for an explanation of the 3 bowls.

The plastic container holds cut up pipe-cleaners.  Use with a magnet to make them

                  crawl up the side.  The kids LOVED this!

I suggest you use a jar that closes tightly if you don' t want this to happen!
             In case you're wondering why we played with magnets, it's because Earth and Mercury are the only 2 rocky planets that have a global magnetic field.

Sensory bowls
Mercury is: dusty (oat bran) and rocky (pebbles). 

 

 Galaxy Play-doh, (recipe found here), "Sam's Space Rescue" book,

The balls are paired together to show the size difference between

 Earth and Mercury, (but you could use a baseball and a golf-ball).

 Magic School Bus books are usually fun and informative, the cards in the holder were

from the dollar section at Target, and the holder is from Dollar Tree.
  The rest of the items are ingredients are for "Planet pancakes"  (scroll down).

 

Activity Shelf #2

 

 Easy reader book from Rocket Readers about colors (since Mercury has no 

atmosphere, the sky looks black!)  I added sparkly pom-poms

(non-magnetic) to our pipe-cleaner jar and paired it with the 

big magnet (a 15 cent find from my Thrift Store trip!)

 Use the magnet to separate items into the correct group.

 File Folder game: arrange by size.
(This came from McKay's in a big book of file folder games).

 Practice pouring "rocks from Mercury"

 Miniature Mancala game from my recent Thrift Store trip.  

This foam peg number set was 50 cent, also from a thrift store! 

I replaced the mini-rocks for flat marbles (from Dollar Tree).  Callie practiced sorting by color.

We called the pegs "asteroids."

(You could put a piece of plexiglass over the holes to explain how Earth is different:

God made our planet with an atmosphere to protect us from asteroids and to color the sky!)

Hammer time!

DIY: You can make your own version.  Click here!

I came up with this cooking activity as a review of Mercury:

Planet Pancakes!  You could make these for any of the planets, but here's what we did for Mercury:

• Dusty: pancake mix
• Cold (at night): Almond milk (or whatever liquid your recipe calls for).
• Hot (during the day): A hot cast iron skillet (or pan)
• Rocky: Chocolate rocks, (or chocolate chips, walnuts, or pecans).
• Asteroids: Blueberries (plopped in, to make craters)

Talk through each of the ingredients and compare them to Mercury. 

•  Add liquid to the pancake mix, then the "rocks" (and any other ingredients your recipe calls for.)

• Pour the pancake onto the hot skillet.

• Toss blueberries onto the pancake.

• Cook both sides and serve with Maple Syrup.

   (We poured the syrup around the pancake in an oval shape to remind us it's extreme elliptical orbit.)

 Our $1 sit-and-spin came in helpful to teach revolving and rotating.
The "rotate" sign says "revolve" on the other side and the child can demonstrate each.
(By using the sit and spin they are revolving around the pink handle).

The seat is an oval shape- a reminder of Mercury's extreme "elliptical orbit."

These are "Tegu Blocks"  they are awesome....but expensive.

 (We picked up this huge set on ebay for less than the retail price of the 8 piece set.)

Tegu blocks are magnetic so they stick to each other and this vintage tray my brother gave me.

 Use promo code B182S2133 by November 3rd to receive 20% OFF anything  at Tegu.com 
(Thanks "Surviving on a Teacher's Salary" for sharing the promo code!)

To learn more about our missionary work with homeschooling families in Thailand, please click here.

 My Apologia textbook is older, so I used a video to show the most recent space voyage.
 Video of the Messenger.

Freebie:  Use my printable pages to review facts and characteristics about Mercury.