The children got to experience how big the planets and the solar system is today when we used toilet roll sheets and fruits to represent the relative sizes and distances of the solar system. It ended up that we had to unravel the toilet roll out of the classroom and down the corridor. Neptune was near the office whilst the Sun was in the classroom! Mercury was a tiny grape and Jupiter was so big we had to use a basketball to represent it! 
The children were amazed by the distances and realised how long it would take to travel to the furthest reaches of our own solar system let alone go to another galaxy! A really fun afternoon that ended with the children doing their own research about the planets whilst listening to Holst’s The Planets Suite. 

Science - facts about the solar system