Today, after riding to my youngest daughter’s ballet class, my son and I continued on down the River Bike Path to Skinner’s Butte Park. Buzz Lightyear came along, transforming the ride into an imagined outer space expedition.
Buzz is bungeed to a bicycle! Is this standard issue?
Playing at RiverPlay Playground at Skinner’s Butte Park.
My boy standing next to a model of the planet, Saturn, just before Skinner’s Butte Park.
The Eugene, Oregon Scale Model Solar System spreads out over several miles along the Willamette River Bike Path.
One of the curricula we have been using for our homeschool science is Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Astronomy. In the first unit, students make a model of the solar system. We’re lucky to live near this outdoor model. It illustrates the scale and the relative distance between the planets and the sun so much better than the smaller models we’ve made at home.
Speaking of astronomy:
A friend brought over a large cardboard box for the purpose of building a space ship. If you call this a space ship, he will tell you it’s the International Space Station.
My son has been really excited about seeing this photo posted, the other day, of a kid in a space suit at the USA Science & Engineering Festival.
Other favorite resources for learning about space:
-
NASA Kids Club which includes a game “Buzz Lightyear Returns From Space,” and printable coloring pages here and here.
- Exploring the Solar System – Dover Coloring Book
- DK Eyewitness – Planets
The Backpack Objective 
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