Students researched about one of the planets in partners. They picked their 5 favorite facts to list in best cursive. Then we melted crayon shavings in between wax paper to make each of the planets and cut them to an approximate scale of their real sizes (sun is not to scale! It's actually much larger). We created a large diagram with the planets in order and I taught them a way to memorize the order by making up a wacky sentence. The class collaborated and came up with these phrases to help them remember the planets' order: "My visitor eats monkies. Just so unusual, no?"
