A great excuse to give our kids a variety of fruits, veggies, meats, and cheeses in one snack (while educating them at the same time), is to make the Solar System with them! Teach your children about the planets in our Solar System (yes, I know Pluto is no longer considered a planet…read on), and give them a healthy snack at the same time!
Using snacks is an amazing way to teach your young child about science. Take a look at our Volcano post for a good example of this!
I found foods to use for each planet first, then I handed each to my daughter one at a time and had her repeat the names of the planets with me in order. As she repeated each one, she laid it on the plate (and I spaced them out a little more for the picture). She normally doesn’t like pepperoni but she ate it with this snack!
Below is a list of which foods I used for each planet:
Sun: mandarin orange, top sliced off and peeled but not separated
Mercury: a red grape
Venus: celery
Earth: kiwi
Mars: strawberry
Jupiter: pepperoni
Saturn: cheddar cheese
Uranus: a slice of string cheese
Neptune: ham
Pluto: (No longer technically a planet) corn
I added Pluto as a way to show my daughter that it was once a part of the solar system but is no longer.
And this one is another solar system I made last week showing the lines of orbit that each planet has.
I prefer the first version, which do you prefer?
The solar system above was made to show how each planet orbits the sun in our galaxy, the milky way.
I made the lines in the photo below as well as the stars in the photos above using this technique:
Variations:
Make your planets out of anything you have in the house that you can cut into circular shapes. Use your own creativity for this one!
If you enjoyed this post, check out our other educational snacks
Volcano Egyptian Pyramids Alphabet Lunch (practice your ABC’s) Stoplight (to learn about traffic rules) The Flood Jonah in the Big Fish David and Goliath Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? (Includes a lunch and learning activity) Joshua and the Battle of Jericho Snowflake Pancakes (plus 25 great educational activities for the snow)
