I shoulda thought this through...

For school we are starting out a study of astronomy this semester.  The book we are using suggested we make a paper model of the solar system, and that sounded simple enough (no papier mache or anything!), so we did it.

The scale we used was 1 cm = 4000 miles, so our little planet earth was a tiny circle 2 centimeters in diameter.  I figured the most difficult part of the project was going to be figuring out how to draw circles with exact diameters... but I was wrong. 

So we got all our planets cut out and attached to pieces of fishing line to hang from the ceiling.  We were trying to decide where to hang our little solar system and then figured we should go ahead and make the sun first.

The sun proved to be the challenge.  A 216-centimeter-in-diameter circle doesn't sound too big, until you actually try to cut one out.

Here's what we ended up with:

 (Strider's pointing at our little blue earth planet.... see it?)

We realized we didn't have a wall big enough for the sun.... so we had to hang it from the balcony in our foyer!

So now I've got a giant "sun" hanging in my foyer, with a bunch of teeny planets below it.  Ironically, this sun is blocking the light of the real sun from coming in, making our upstairs hallway darker than normal.  The things we do to teach our kids.

I think we all did get a better perspective on how small the earth is in comparison to other things!  It makes us feel a little like the "Who's" in "Horton Hears a Who!"