Hanging Planets

Aaron has loved learning about the Solar System lately. He got a Wall-E cartridge for his Leapster for Easter, which teaches about the planets and constellations among other things and we planned a planetarium trip for a day we thought Daddy would have off from work for an IEP meeting with Aaron's school. (We ended up doing the meeting with him on the phone, at least.) We still went to the Natural History Museum, excuse me, the Museum of Nature and Science (I've been calling it the Natural History Museum since I was 7!) and went to the planetarium for the first time since they rebuilt it and went all digital years ago. It was kind of funny that my first reaction was to keep my kids off the escalator (which had a window under it so you could see the inner workings--how cool is that?) because as a teacher I went with the 8th graders every year to the museum and the house rule is that students can't use the escalators! We checked out the weather exhibit (Papa is a meteorologist newly retired from NCAR--the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder), and of course the kids got bored with it long before he did. Then we walked through the space exhibit towards the planetarium and got an almost private showing (two other young men) of "Cosmic Journey" which was a half-hour long trip to each of the 8 planets, plus Pluto, since the film was made before Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet. Both Aaron and Julia recognized the planets before they were named in the film!
The day before, while doing my shopping at Wal-Mart, I was passing the toy aisles and this box of plastic planets caught my eye. I try not to buy things on a whim, but I knew the planets would complement the space theme already going in his bedroom and that he would absolutely love them. Into the cart they went! When we got home from the museum, I surprised Aaron with it (I didn't notice it at first, but he did, that the box also said they glowed in the dark) and I hung them up for him, using my math skills to try to place them roughly a proportional amount from the "sun" as in reality. (The collection also includes Pluto, which went in the far large corner near the entry way.) Aaron thought it was a great idea to have his light be the sun! So, here's Aaron's Solar System:



Way in the back, that blue spot??? That's Pluto!

For this one, I laid down on the floor and took a picture looking up.
























Before I close, a giggle for the day. I was driving Julia to preschool today and we were stopped at a red light near a Safeway when she suddenly said, "I see a Santa." Not believing my ears, I asked her to repeat it. "I see a Santa." I looked to my left and saw an elderly gentleman with a paper coffee cup in his hand walking on the sidewalk towards the intersection, and he had a long white beard! Just like Santa!