Art Lesson Ideas on the Solar System for Elementary Students

Art Lesson Ideas on the Solar System for Elementary Students
Page content

Paint the Sun

Because the sun is so much larger than the planets, it is best to have the sun on a wall and hang the planets from the ceiling. Take a large piece of butcher paper, or pieces taped together, and spread out on the floor. Give students mostly yellow paint and let them cover the butcher paper. Before the yellow paint is dry, mix in a few swirls of red and orange. Use brown to include sun spots.

When dry, cut out a rounded shape and put up on the wall or over a corner near the ceiling.

swirl sun

Alternatively, if you have the option, paint the sun on the wall, complete with wavy rays of light.

Size the Planets

The following list is the planet in order of their size by smallest to largest kilometers in diameter. The sizes of the paper mache planets must be relative to each other.

Blow up round balloons to be the planets, the smallest balloon is Pluto and the largest balloon is Jupiter. You may also choose to use styrofoam balls or any other round or roundish object as the base for paper mache.

Smaller Planets:

  • Pluto 2,274 km in diameter (notice that Pluto is smaller than our moon!)
  • Mercury diameter 4,880
  • Mars 6,794
  • Venus 12,103.6
  • Earth 12,756.3 and our moon 3,476

Larger Planets:

  • Neptune 49,532 (Notice that Neptune is just a little smaller than its twin, Uranus)
  • Uranus 51,118
  • Saturn 120,536 (Saturn has rings, we will include those later)
  • Jupiter 142,984.

Paper Mache

The easiest paper mache is made with newspaper strips and either, flour, water, and peppermint oil, or liquid starch. If using flour, add enough water to white flour to make a thin paste, and add a little peppermint oil for scent.

Tie yarn around the balloon ends ahead of time. Instruct your students to dip strips of newspaper into the paste, gently run the strip between their fingers to remove excess paste, and lay flat on the balloon. This is repeated until the balloon is covered with a good layer of strips. The balloon must be set aside to dry, at least overnight.

If you choose to use styrofoam balls instead of balloons, you will need to insert a hook in the ball from which to hang from the ceiling with string.

After the paper mache planets are dry, paint them each different colors that represent how we see them. Suggestions:

Mercury: Red on one side, black on the other.

Venus: Perhaps a light greenish-yellow, or very light brown.

Earth: Blue and green with white poles.

Mars: Red.

Jupiter: Swirls of browns and reds.

Saturn: Pink and light blue or beige. Remember she has rings.

planets

Uranus: Light blue.

Neptune: The same or very slightly darker than Uranus.

Pluto: Purple.

After the planets are dry, attach Saturn’s rings (below) and hang from your ceiling, in correct order from the painted sun to Pluto.

Saturn’s Rings

To attach Saturn’s rings to Saturn, try poking three holes with a needle and inserting three thin wires into the painted, dry, paper mache planet. Take metallic pipe cleaners, and make a long braid that will more than reach around Saturn. Wrap the other end of the wires around the pipe cleaners, and hand Saturn.

References

This post is part of the series: Solar System Lessons in Elementary Education

Hands on, artistic techniques to teach students all about the solar system.

  1. Solar System Mural
  2. Building the Solar System in Art Class