In July, we took the children to Parkes for the weekend, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing at The Dish. It was an amazing experience, being able to walk up the tower and around the azimuth track, attend talks by a whole mix of scientists, watching The Dish At The Dish (very cool, both figuratively and literally), and back up on day two for the actual moon landing replayed, and quite possibly the highlight, Mr13 participating in Pulse@Parkes and being able to actually drive the dish in search of pulsars. Very very cool.

Since coming home, not only has Mr13 been continuing to work towards his rocket scientist goals, but Mr6, rather unexpectedly, has become totally obsessed with space and stars and the solar system and has decided he wants to be the first person to live on Mars. His new interest made it super easy to plan for his next school session – solar systems all the way! I grabbed some solar system printables (this poster and these cards) and we were off. Matching letters, size and ordering, talking about the different planets, it was a fun week of exploring the planets. We also mixed in a Kiwi Crate that we had on hand which looked at the earth’s rotation, and then wrapped up the week with some craft.

Using our printables as a colour guide, we coloured some wooden beads with watercolour paint to create our own solar system. Once dry, a bit of twine and a stick was all we needed to turn the coloured beads into our very own wall hanging. Not only does Mr6 love it, but he (and everyone else) proceeded to spend the next hour painting more beads to create their own solar systems. Pretty sure that means it was a winner of a project!