Astronomy night for 5 year old prep students.

[batema (Mark)]

Today our school agreed to take our telescopes SCT 8 and ED 80 to the primary school and host an astronomy evening for 5 year old students and their fathers on the 18th April on the Sunshine Coast Queensland. Any suggestions on how to run the evening would be appreciated. The moon will be full on the 20th. I have a five year old and he is keen to look through the scope so I hope the same will be true on the night even if the attention span may be a little short. Of course the other interest is in the fathers. Thanks Mark B

[pvelez (Pete)]

Quite a challenge for you!

I hosted my daughter's 10th birthday last year and turned it into an astronomy party. Views of saturn are always a winner. But the surprise hit was illustrating the scale of the solar system using a roll of toilet paper. It involves counting by reference to squares of paper eg Mercury is located 2 squares from the sun, Venus 4 squares etc. We started with Mars within the living room and ended up with Neptune out the front gate and about 10 metres down the street. You can find this on the web - it cracked up my girls

Pete

[batema (Mark)]

It will be an interesting evening. Thanks for the advice Mark B

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

G'day Mark.

It will be a challenge keeping them interested. How many are you expecting?

[Solanum]

I have twin girls that are 5 next week and in prep. I find that they are quite interested in astronomy but the biggest difficulty in using the scope is their inability to close one eye and effectively look through the other. So I'd suggest taking an eye patch for each scope and getting them to were those (can add a fun pirate twist as well).

They are much better with binoculars, so if you can get hold of some big binos they would be a worthwhile addition to your evening (bearing in mind the smaller inter-pupilary distance they have of course!). These are especially good for the terminator of the moon as they can see the 'mountains' there.

I agree that the solar system scale is a great idea. I think my girls struggle with scale concepts, but they are very interested in the positioning of the planets and know that the inner ones are hot and the outer ones cold etc. So some basic info like that would be useful.

Finally, as a father of a five-year old yourself I'm sure that you are aware that they will be tired! My kids go to bed at 7:30-8:00, so much later than that and they can get a little fractious....

[pvelez (Pete)]

Here's the link to the toilet paper model.

http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/AtHomeAs...tivity_10.html

It was quite a blast at the party we did.

Pete

[batema (Mark)]

Paul, The teacher said there will probably be about 15 kids and then their fathers as they are having a sleep over. I think we will be in by 7.30 and out by 8.30 unless the fathers are keen. I going to speak with here on the first couple of days aftyer the holidays. I will give Mapleton a big push. Adam and i are close to doing an evening with our Yr 11 and 12 so will will organise an evening with you guys at Mapleton towards the end of April or early in May. Speak to you soon. How goes the observatory ? Mark B

[John Saunders]

G'day Mark,

I did a similar thing with my wife's grade - but they were grade 5's not five-year olds. What I can suggest is to set up a couple of scopes if you have some friends around and get the kids to move from one to the other. I had my bigger scope fixed on Jupiter and my son had the smaller on the moon.

With a newly waning moon you should pick out any of the planets around, but don't forget the moon itself. I found kids and parents were absolutely fascinated by the moon since most of them had never look through a telescope. After Jupe disappeared I went to the moon with the bigger scope and they kept lining up! Talk to them and explain (in simple terms!) what they are looking at.

As others have said, the key thing will be keeping the five-year-olds interested...but the moon is a great draw card and they will keep coming back to look. So, the key is to keep each kid's viewing short so they want to come back and keep looking and their mates don't get bored whilst they are looking. The parents were equally fascinated and waited in line with the kids for their turn as well.

Oh, yeah...if you have a laser pointer the kids will be fascinated and you can show them and the parents what the correct use of the laser pointer is! It really helps when you point out constellations like Orion and the Cross.

Cheers and good luck!

[batema (Mark)]

Thankyou all some great suggestions. I'll comment on how it goes and maybe throw in a couple of photos. Mark B