Three lesson plans
Sixty-minute outlines built around the journey, the Daily Planet, the weekly challenge and the printables. English year groups are given with ages so they map onto any curriculum; the second plan follows the Year 5 "Earth and Space" unit of the English national curriculum.
1. What is up there? (Years 1 to 2, ages 5 to 7)
Objectives: name the Sun, the Moon and Earth; know that Earth is a planet and the Sun is a star; know that other planets go round the Sun too.
You need: the journey on the board with Classroom mode set to the eight planets; the Sun and planet flashcards; the picture book if you have it.
Starter (10 min): read the first pages of Hugo's Journey Through Space, or play the Sun's narration on the site. Ask: what does Hugo see first? Why is the Sun so big and bright?
Main (35 min): fly Hugo from the Sun to Mars together, stopping at each body to hear the narrator and say the name. Then Human Solar System with the Sun and the first four planets: children stand in order and say "I am Mercury, I am closest to the Sun." Finish with Speed Names on the four rocky planets plus the Moon.
Plenary (10 min): switch the Earth page to Little explorers and read it aloud. Children draw Earth with its Moon and label both.
Differentiation: pair readers with non-readers for the cards; give the Moon card to a child who needs a familiar starting point.
Misconceptions: the Sun is not a planet; the Moon does not make its own light; the planets are much farther apart than any picture shows.
Homework: look at the Moon tonight and draw its shape.
2. The planets in order (Year 5, ages 9 to 10, "Earth and Space")
Objectives: describe the movement of Earth and the other planets relative to the Sun; know the eight planets in order; describe the Sun, Earth and Moon as roughly spherical bodies.
You need: the journey on the board; a printed planets worksheet per child; the poster.
Starter (10 min): the Daily Planet on the board. The class guesses together; use the arrows (nearer or farther, bigger or smaller) to talk about how the clues narrow it down.
Main (35 min): fly the eight planets in order, reading the Space cadets text for two or three of them. At each stop ask children to record the distance in miles from the card at the bottom of the screen. Then use the poster to place the planets on a line across the classroom to scale in distance (Neptune is 30 times farther than Earth). Discuss what "a year" means on Mercury and on Neptune.
Plenary (15 min): the worksheet, twenty questions, marked from the key. Or the weekly challenge in pairs with result codes for you to collect.
Differentiation: the Little explorers text for children who need it; the Grown-ups text and the "How many moons?" pages for those who finish early.
Misconceptions: the planets do not line up in a row; Pluto is a dwarf planet, not the ninth planet; the asteroid belt is not a wall of rocks.
Homework: the Planet of the week sheet for a planet of their choice.
3. Beyond the planets (Years 5 to 6, ages 9 to 11)
Objectives: know that the solar system has moons, dwarf planets and belts as well as planets; know that the number of known moons changes as astronomers find more; know where the Sun's influence ends.
You need: the journey with everything switched on in Classroom mode; the How many moons does Saturn have? page; the beyond worksheet.
Starter (10 min): "How many moons does Saturn have?" Take guesses, then show the page and the date on the count. Why does the number change?
Main (35 min): fly from Jupiter outward: the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the Kuiper belt and Pluto, the heliopause where the Sun's wind stops, the Voyagers still sending messages home, and the Oort cloud where the journey ends. Groups take one stop each, read its page at the Space cadets level, and report three facts to the class. Use Moon Match with the flashcards to fix which moon belongs to which planet.
Plenary (15 min): the class debates "Where does the solar system end?" using the heliopause and Oort cloud pages: the wind ends at one, the gravity at the other. Then the worksheet or the weekly challenge.
Differentiation: give the Moon and Titan pages to groups who need concrete, visual bodies; give the heliopause and the Oort cloud to groups ready for an abstract idea.
Misconceptions: the Voyagers have not left the solar system; the Oort cloud has never been seen; moons can be bigger than planets (Ganymede is bigger than Mercury).
Homework: the Planet of the week sheet for a moon.
Free for your classroom, always. Facts on every page are checked against NASA and JPL, and the moon counts refresh monthly.