Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy Lesson 3

We completed lesson 3 in Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy. The focus of this lesson was on Planet Mercury.

We learned that:

• Mercury is the closest planet to the sun
• It is the smallest planet in the Solar System
• Mercury does not have an atmosphere
• We did a demonstration on why Mercury does not cause an eclipse
• Learned all about the craters on Mercury

While I am reading to the boys, they will either do a coloring page or a crossword puzzle. It keeps their hands busy and it helps them focus on the lesson.

I got this coloring page from here

 To help them with their notebooking I write and draw on the board what they narrate to me.

Mercury notebooking page

We explored why its hard for scientist to observe the surface of Mercury. The pencil represents Mercury and the light represents the Sun. The light behind the pencil is so bright making it difficult to see the surface of the pencil. Similarly the glare of the Sun behind Mercury makes it difficult to study the planet's surface.

 We dropped some pebbles on flour to observe how craters are formed on Mercury.

 Some of the books we enjoyed.

To end our study on Mercury we watched this short video I found on youtube.