Lesson Plans for OUR SOLAR SYSTEM level S

Before Reading

Introducing the Book
Hand out the books and have children read the title and the table of contents to make an informed prediction about the content of The Solar System.
Ask: What do you expect to learn about the solar system from reading this book?
Ask children what they already know about the solar system.
Say and ask: Share with the group what you already know about the solar system. What do you know about the sun? Do you know the difference between the inner and the outer planets? How many planets can you name? What do you think inner and outer refers to? Would you expect the Earth to be an inner or an outer planet? Do you know the name of a comet?

Build Background
Have children turn to page 28 and read the bold face glossary terms.
Ask: Are there any words that you are unable to pronounce? Which of these words do you already know the meaning of? Which of these words are new to you?
Have children read the definitions and discuss any that they are still unclear about. Discuss the following words: rotate, approximately, unique. Ensure that children know the meanings of these words before they begin reading the text.

Book Walk
Have children turn to page 4 and read the first two sentences.
Ask: Did you know that there were so many moons in the solar system? Does this knowledge surprise you?
Have children scan the rest of the page to find out which are the inner and which are the outer planets.
Ask: What do you now know about inner and outer planets?
Have children read the first sentence under the subhead The Sun. Have them explain in their own words what the sun is and does. Have children turn to page 8 and scan the text for the numerals.
Say: Read the sentences with 88 and 365 in them. What do these sentences tell you? What do they compare? What does the sentence with 59 in it compare?
Have children turn to page 10 and scan for the numerals. Then ask them what these sentences compare. Have children turn to page 13 and scan the first sentence to find out the size of the moon.
Ask: Compared to Earth, how big is the moon?
Have children turn to page 15.
Say: Read the last two sentences and then share with the group what you found out and what is being compared.
Have children read the last two sentences on page 17.
Ask: What have you learned? What is being compared?
Have children turn to page 24. Have them scan the text to find out the name of the most famous comet.
Ask: Were you right when you named a comet before we started looking at the book?
Have children return to page 4.


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