Solar System Science options for homeschooling your learning abled kid.

The solar system is a great, hands on science topic. From magnetic planets like those pictured, to full solar system planets models, there are great resources for teaching your child. It doesn’t matter if  your child is a visual, hands on, or kinesthetic learner, there are kits and tools to help teach your child all about our planet’s system.

NASA – Complete Space Exploration site. This site could fit into many categories including astronomy, discovery, weather, etc. There are grade leveled teaching resources and information on NASA explorations. Videos requiring RealPlayer or Quicktime are on site. These are exploration videos or simulations (as in the Mars Rover landing on Mars). We’ve used this site for solar system studies. We found almost everything we wanted to know easy to find here.

Amazing Space by Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach – Interactive lessons about our planetary system and the exploration of space. This site explores the physics of space, comets, black holes, etc.

National Maritime Museum Greenwich Observatory – My favorite on this site is the scale image of the solar system planets. The NMM Observatory site has information on each planet. It also has interactive games, historical information, etc. While it’s not the most colorful or interactive site, it does contain solid content for learning.

National Geographic’s Virtual Solar System – Go on an interactive tour of the solar system planets. IF you have 3D Glasses handy, there is a 3-D version which can be great fun for your kids. It is fun to see with a pair of 3D Glasses, if you can stand to wait for them to arrive!

Day and Night: Views from the Southern Hemisphere – Animated movies showing the rising and setting of the sun, revolution of the Earth, Earth’s orbit, and phases of the moon. Each of the movies has high level explanations. These video animations are fun to watch, even for big kids!