Sunday, April 27, 2008

Constellation

This post is by Nathan.


A couple of weeks ago, I affixed glow-in-the-dark stars and planets to the kids' ceiling. Over Megan's bed I made a crude representation of the constellation Orion, and I put the Big Dipper over Jeremy's bed. Extra stars are randomly distributed over the rest of the kid's "sky" with the planets orbiting (in their correct order) around the light in the center of the ceiling. This, naturally, fueled an already burning interest in space and its occupants.

Tonight I showed Megan where Saturn is (near Regulus in Leo) and where to find Mars (near Pollux in Gemini). She was very excited to locate her two favorite planets, even though they appear as nothing more than pinpoints of light.

As I was carrying her back inside, Megan pointed north and emphatically said, "Look, Papa, look! That's the one over Jeremy's bed!!" She had located her first constellation with no prompting from me. I was pretty surprised she could pick it out so well, especially since there was a street lamp just below the Big Dipper, making the sky harder to see.

2 comments:

Jess said...

she's so smart it scares me sometimes.. p.s. you should really look at my aunt carrie's blog at the two most recent posts.. you'd both really laugh

Leanne said...

That's cute. Good job Megan!