Solar System First Grade Homeschool Lesson 2: Mercury

This is a Christian Home School Lesson Series for first graders on the Solar System that aims to fulfill the Science Content Standards from the California Department of Education.

Lesson 2: Mercury

 

Purpose: To explore and know more about God’s creation of Mercury.

 

Book(s) read:

Gregory Vogt’s Mercury.

 

Other tools:

Paper

Pencil

Crayons

 

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn general knowledge about Mercury.
2. Learn the vocabulary concerning Mercury.
3. Illustrate what is learned in this lesson about Mercury.
4. Learn a spiritual lesson concerning Mercury.

 

Lessons

1. Learn general knowledge about Mercury.

Tool 1: Read Gregory Vogt’s Mercury.

Tool 2: Questions

What is your favorite picture from what we read?

Point to pictures that shows Mercury.

Tool 3: Further period of interactive instructions

A planet is a spherical space object circling around the sun.

Mercury is the closet planet to the sun.

It has a lot of craters on its surface and it is greyish in color.

It is over 800 degrees Fahrenheit during the day (when it faces the sun) (Adele Richardson, Mercury, 4)!

That is twice as hot as an oven to make a pizza (Gregory Vogt’s Mercury, 21)!

It is very cold at parts of Mercury when it does not face the sun: It is -280 degrees Fahrenheit (Gregory Vogt’s Mercury, 22)!

Comparing it to other planets

It takes 88 days to orbit the sun, the shortest for all the planets (Gregory Vogt’s Mercury, 16).

Mercury is the eighth largest planet in our solar system (Adele Richardson, Mercury, 21).

Earth is two and a half times larger than Mercury (Gregory Vogt’s Mercury, 16).

2. Learn the vocabulary concerning Mercury.

(Note:  Write down the vocabularies on a white board)

1. Crater: Holes made when a space rock hits the surface.
2. Atmosphere: Gas above a planet’s surface.
3. Orbit: One complete trip around the sun.

3. Illustrate what is learned in this lesson about Mercury.

Have four blocks to draw in.

First block label and draw a picture of Mercury.

Second block label and draw craters.  These are craters on the planet Mercury.

Third block label and draw orbit.  Have a picture of Mercury circling around the Sun.

Fourth block label and draw a picture of Mercury again.

Switch paper and see the similarities and differences in one another’s drawings.

4. Learn a spiritual lesson about God’s creation of Mercury.

Tool 1: Bible

“And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.” (Deuteronomy 4:19)

This planet is named after a false god.

While we can enjoy God’s creation of the planets and be amazed at what God has done that does not mean we should worship it!  This is what the verse says here!

Tool 2: Questions

Are you amazed at how God created Mercury?

Even as you are amazed with Mercury do you realize you cannot make it into an idol?

Review: Share what you learn today.

 

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