Hi ,my name is Mary and I’ve been teaching for over 20 years now.
My favourite fact about space would have to be that you wouldn’t be able to walk on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune as they have no solid surface!
The inquiry based activity I would choose to recreate with a younger class would be that of creating our own model solar systems. I would start the lesson by watching a YouTube video explaining in fun and simple terms what a solar is and what it consists of. Following that I would have the children go into groups of 4 and begin discussing why they think the solar system follows the order it does . After the topic has been discussed and questioned I would begin the physical task of creating our solar systems. The equipment the children would have in their groups would be either foam spheres of alternating sizes or even stones, I would supply them paint ,pipe cleaners , glitter, glue and Pom poms and then they would have put the planets in the order they think is right. After each group has completed this task I would have them present their solar systems to the class one by one and explain why they put the planets in this specific order. I believe this would be an educational and fun inquiry based lesson .