KS2 solar system activities let children get hands-on with space science. They help pupils make sense of planets, orbits, and celestial bodies, all while ticking off National Curriculum goals for Earth and space. These activities can be as simple as building a scale model of the solar system or as lively as acting out how gravity keeps planets moving around the Sun. Teachers across the UK love using these practical lessons to turn tricky space ideas into something Year 5 and Year 6 pupils can really see and touch.
LearningMole, a UK platform set up by Michelle Connolly, provides curriculum-aligned resources that support space topics in primary classrooms. Michelle Connolly, who spent over 15 years teaching, says, “Space activities capture children’s imaginations like few other topics can, and when you combine that natural curiosity with practical tasks, the learning becomes unforgettable.”
Planning activities that link your KS2 solar system topic across other subjects helps children hang onto facts while picking up skills in art, design, and literacy.
The best solar system activities for KS2 clear up common myths, such as the old belief that Earth sits at the centre of everything. When you use clear diagrams and 3D models, children start to see how the solar system actually works. Showing kids the huge differences in planetary sizes and distances really helps them get their heads around these mind-boggling scales.
The solar system has the Sun at its centre, eight planets circling around it, and loads of smaller objects pulled together by gravity. When pupils learn how the Sun gives out energy, how planets differ in size and make-up, and what keeps everything in orbit, KS2 students get the basics of astronomy.
The solar system is the Sun and everything that orbits it thanks to gravity. You’ll find eight planets, their moons, asteroids, comets, and even dust all spinning around the Sun.
All these objects travel along paths called orbits. The planets follow a set order from the Sun. Mercury comes first, then Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
You can use mnemonics like “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos” to help pupils remember the order. About 4.6 billion years ago, everything in the solar system formed from a massive cloud of gas and dust.
Gravity pulled most of this stuff towards the centre, creating the Sun. The leftover bits stuck together and became the planets and other objects we see today.
The Sun sits at the centre of the solar system and gives heat and light to all the planets. It holds more than 99% of all the mass in the solar system.
Without the Sun’s energy, Earth would freeze solid and life wouldn’t exist. The Sun mainly consists of hydrogen and helium gas.
Inside its core, temperatures reach around 15 million degrees Celsius. This intense heat sparks nuclear reactions that make the light and warmth we feel on Earth.
The Sun’s gravity keeps all the planets in their orbits. Earth sits at just the right distance from the Sun to have liquid water and support life.
People call this the “goldilocks zone” because conditions are just right.
The eight planets fall into two groups: rocky planets and gas giants. Rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) have solid surfaces.
Gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are much bigger and made mostly of gas.
Rocky Planets:
Gas Giants:
Each planet has its own temperatures, sizes, and features. Jupiter could fit over 1,300 Earths inside it, while Mercury is just a bit bigger than our Moon.
Teachers can make space topics exciting with physical models showing planet sizes and distances, worksheet activities that reinforce learning, and digital quizzes to test understanding.
When you build a scale model, pupils start to grasp the huge distances between planets and how different they are in size. Everyday items like foam balls, fruit, or painted polystyrene spheres work well for each planet.
For accurate size comparisons, you might use a peppercorn for Mercury, a tennis ball for Earth, and a big beach ball for Jupiter. Pupils usually work in small groups to research each planet before building their model.
If you want to show distances, head outside and use toilet paper sheets to represent the space between planets. Each sheet stands for a set number of kilometres.
Pupils soon realise just how far apart the planets really are compared to their sizes.
Worksheets give pupils a way to practise what they’ve learned about the eight planets. Pick activities where they label diagrams, order planets by distance from the Sun, or match planets to their main features.
Word searches and crosswords are great as quick starters or homework. They help pupils get used to new words like orbit, asteroid, and gas giant.
Comparison tables work well for KS2 learners. Pupils fill in charts about each planet’s diameter, number of moons, or temperature.
This builds their data handling skills and reinforces science ideas from the National Curriculum.
Digital quizzes give instant feedback and let pupils test their understanding of the solar system. You can use ready-made quizzes to check what pupils know before starting a new topic.
Multiple choice questions suit younger KS2 pupils. Older Year 5 and 6 students enjoy more challenging formats.
Try adding questions about planet make-up, how long they take to orbit, or features like Saturn’s rings or Mars’s red colour. Quiz results help you spot which topics need more teaching time.
If lots of pupils struggle with questions about gas giants versus rocky planets, you know to revisit that idea in your next lesson.
Planets move on curved paths called orbits as they travel around the Sun. Gravity keeps everything together and stops the solar system from flying apart.
The Earth takes one full trip around the Sun every 365 days. At the same time, it spins on its own axis.
All planets in our solar system travel around the Sun on paths called orbits. These orbits are stretched circles called ellipses, though most planet orbits look nearly circular to us.
The Sun sits at a special point called the focus, not quite at the centre of each orbit. Each planet moves at a different speed depending on how far it is from the Sun.
Mercury races around quickly because it’s closest. Neptune takes much longer since it’s far away.
You can help your pupils understand orbits by having them act as planets and walk in circles around someone playing the Sun. This approach helps clear up the idea that Earth lies at the centre of everything.
Earth takes one year to orbit the Sun. That journey covers about 940 million kilometres through space.
While Earth travels around the Sun, it spins on its axis, which makes day and night. Earth moves through space at around 107,000 kilometres per hour.
We don’t feel this movement at all. Earth’s path keeps it about the same distance from the Sun all year, which helps keep temperatures steady enough for life.
Your Year 5 pupils learn about the movement of Earth and other planets relative to the Sun. LearningMole has free curriculum-aligned videos showing Earth’s orbit with clear animations that make this movement easier to picture.
Gravity pulls objects towards each other. The Sun’s gravity keeps all the planets in their orbits and stops them from drifting off into space.
Without gravity, Earth would shoot off in a straight line instead of following its curved path. The Sun has huge gravity because it holds so much mass.
This pulling force stretches across millions of kilometres and even holds faraway planets like Neptune in their orbits. Larger planets have stronger gravity than smaller ones.
That’s why Jupiter has so many moons circling it. Gravity also affects how fast planets move in their orbits.
Planets closer to the Sun travel faster because the Sun’s pull is stronger there.
Students can explore how Earth, the moon, and the sun interact with hands-on activities that make tricky ideas easier to grasp. These investigations help children understand orbital patterns and the effects of Earth’s rotation.
The moon changes shape as it orbits Earth each month. You can get your class to track these phases by starting a moon diary over four weeks.
Hand out a simple chart to each student. They draw what they see each night.
Oreo biscuits make a fun way to show the eight main phases. Let students twist the biscuits apart and scrape away the cream to create new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, and waning crescent.
This tasty model helps the idea stick. Kids usually remember the phases better when they can eat their work.
Try using a torch and a polystyrene ball for a hands-on demo. One student holds the torch as the sun, and another walks in a circle with the ball as the moon.
The rest of the class watches how the light changes on the ball from different spots. LearningMole has free video demos of moon phase activities that fit the KS2 curriculum.
Earth spins to create day and night. Different parts of the planet face the sun or move away from it.
You can show this with a globe and a lamp in a dark room. Stick a tiny figure on the UK and slowly spin the globe.
Students notice the figure slips into darkness and comes back into the light. This simple trick also shows why other countries have daytime while we have night.
Put stickers on more countries to track several time zones at once. It really brings the idea home.
Head outside for a shadow stick investigation. Push a stick into the ground and get students to mark the shadow’s position each hour.
They’ll see the shadow moves and changes length as Earth spins and the sun appears to move across the sky.
KS2 students can get stuck into the features of Mars, Venus, and Jupiter with hands-on activities. Each planet has its quirks, and it’s actually quite fun to see how different our cosmic neighbours are.
Mars stands out as the red planet because iron oxide, or rust, covers its surface. That reddish colour makes Mars easy for your students to spot when learning about the planets.
Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos. It’s about half as big as Earth and takes 687 Earth days to go around the Sun.
A day on Mars lasts about 24 hours and 37 minutes. That’s almost the same as a day here, which is a neat fact for kids.
Scientists have found signs of old riverbeds and polar ice caps on Mars. These discoveries suggest Mars once had liquid water.
You can ask your students to make charts comparing Mars and Earth. They could look at size, temperature, and atmosphere.
Venus shines as the brightest object in our night sky after the Moon. It spins backwards compared to most other planets, so the Sun rises in the west on Venus.
Thick clouds of sulphuric acid cover the whole planet, and surface temperatures reach 465°C. That makes Venus the hottest planet in the solar system.
Jupiter is the biggest planet, with more than twice the mass of all the others put together. The Great Red Spot is a huge storm, bigger than Earth itself, and it’s been raging for centuries.
Your pupils can spot the Great Red Spot in images and compare it to storms on Earth. Jupiter has at least 95 known moons, including four large ones Galileo found in 1610.
LearningMole has videos to help children picture the size of Jupiter next to other planets. You can use different-sized balls in your classroom to model these differences.
Saturn grabs attention with its bright rings. The other outer planets have their own cool features that really interest young learners studying the solar system.
Saturn comes second in size in our solar system and sits sixth from the Sun. Its famous rings consist of billions of chunks of ice and rock, from tiny grains to pieces as big as houses.
You could fit about 764 Earths inside Saturn, though it’s surprisingly light for its size. Saturn consists mostly of hydrogen and helium gases.
It spins so quickly that a day lasts just over 10 hours, much faster than Earth’s 24-hour day. Saturn has at least 83 moons, and Titan is the biggest.
Titan is even larger than Mercury and has lakes and rivers made from liquid methane, not water. These details make Saturn a great topic for KS2 pupils studying planets.
Uranus and Neptune sit beyond Saturn in our solar system. Uranus shows a blue-green colour because methane gas fills its atmosphere.
It spins on its side, which makes it stand out from the rest. Uranus takes 84 Earth years to go around the Sun.
Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun. Winds on Neptune can hit 2,000 kilometres per hour, the fastest in the solar system.
The planet has a deep blue look and takes 165 Earth years to complete an orbit. Both Uranus and Neptune are called ice giants because water, methane, and ammonia make up their interiors.
LearningMole has free science videos to help Year 5 and Year 6 pupils get to grips with these distant planets through animations.
Since the 1960s, people and robots have travelled beyond Earth on space missions. The International Space Station orbits our planet as a laboratory where astronauts carry out experiments in microgravity.
The space race kicked off in 1957 when the Soviet Union sent Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit. Four years later, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961.
NASA’s Apollo programme changed space exploration. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon in 1969, something many thought would never happen.
Between 1969 and 1972, twelve astronauts walked on the lunar surface. Robotic missions have gone even further.
The Voyager probes launched in 1977 and still send data from beyond our solar system. Mars rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance search for ancient life on the Red Planet.
You can find KS2 space activities that help pupils learn about these missions with hands-on tasks. Your class might enjoy making timelines of space milestones or building model rockets to test how launches work.
The International Space Station (ISS) circles Earth every 90 minutes about 400 kilometres up. Six astronauts usually live and work there, coming from different countries and agencies.
Astronauts on the ISS carry out hundreds of experiments that don’t work on Earth. They grow plants without gravity, test new medicines, and watch how the human body changes in space.
These experiments help scientists get ready for longer trips to Mars. Your pupils can watch live feeds from the ISS and see astronauts floating in microgravity.
LearningMole has videos showing what daily life looks like on the station, from eating to exercising. The BBC Bitesize space topic has activities where children can see what astronauts experience.
British astronaut Tim Peake has inspired so many pupils across the UK to discover space exploration. Astronauts use special tools and methods to study our solar system and try to answer big questions about the universe.
Tim Peake became the first British ESA astronaut to visit the International Space Station in 2015. He spent six months living and working in space, running experiments and sharing his journey with schools across the UK.
During his mission, Tim Peake helped pupils learn about life in space through live video calls and social media. He answered questions about eating, sleeping, and exercising without gravity.
His work made space science feel more real for children in Key Stage 2. You can use Tim Peake’s story as a spark for classroom activities.
Ask your pupils to research his journey or write a diary entry from his point of view. Many teachers find that real astronaut stories help children connect with space topics.
Astronauts use a mix of methods to collect information about our solar system. They do experiments on the International Space Station, take photos of Earth and other planets, and test gear for future missions.
Scientists on Earth study the data to find out how planets form and if life might exist elsewhere. Space agencies send robotic probes to planets humans can’t reach yet.
These machines collect soil, measure temperatures, and snap detailed pictures. LearningMole has free videos explaining how these tools work and what astronauts discover.
Your pupils can try designing their own space mission or come up with questions they’d ask an astronaut. It’s a good way to get everyone thinking like scientists.
Teaching earth and space topics fits well with National Curriculum requirements. You can blend science with other subjects and find creative ways to make planetary concepts accessible throughout your teaching day.
The National Curriculum expects Year 5 pupils to describe how Earth and other planets move around the sun in the solar system. This requirement forms the core of your space teaching.
You’ll need to show how Earth rotates on its axis and orbits the sun. Pupils learn that day and night happen because of Earth’s rotation.
They also discover how the moon orbits Earth. The curriculum asks children to name the eight planets in order from the sun.
Help pupils recognise that each planet is different. If you want to, you could talk about dwarf planets like Pluto, but that’s optional.
Many teachers use physical demonstrations to show how planets move. Try letting pupils act as planets and moons, moving around each other in the classroom or outside.
Space topics fit nicely with other subjects too. In maths, you can work out planetary distances and sizes using scale calculations.
Pupils might time how long light takes to travel from the sun to each planet. Art lessons let children make solar system models or invent their own planets.
You could link this to design technology by building rockets or space stations from recycled materials. Writing activities for Earth and space get pupils writing stories about space travel or persuading others which planet to colonise.
Geography comes in when you look at how different cultures saw constellations or how time zones work. In history, you can look at the space race or how people changed their ideas about the solar system.
Computing skills grow when pupils make digital presentations about planets or code simple orbit simulations.
Hands-on projects mix art with science so KS2 pupils really understand how planets work. By building models and making things, children remember facts about distances, sizes and the solar system’s layout.
Creative solar system projects let pupils dig into planetary features with painting, sculpting and mixed media. You might have your class use watercolours to paint planets, showing off Mars’s reds and Neptune’s blues.
Coffee filter planets are great for younger children. Pupils use markers and water to make bright, swirly planets and learn about what makes each one unique.
Paint stick solar systems are another option. Children paint planets onto wooden sticks and arrange them in order from the sun.
For collaborative classroom displays, try a big mixed media solar system. Pupils use fabric, tissue paper and recycled bits to make textured planets that hang from the ceiling.
You could pair this with a worksheet that lists facts and distances, helping children connect their art with science.
Spacecraft construction projects let pupils explore engineering while learning about how humans study space. Challenge your class to design and build rockets from cardboard tubes, bottles and card, thinking about aerodynamics and balance.
LearningMole has free video tutorials for making simple spacecraft models with everyday items. Year 5 or Year 6 pupils might design landers for different planets, thinking about gravity, atmosphere and surface.
This ties in with the National Curriculum’s focus on forces and scientific enquiry. Pupils can fill in research worksheets to explain their design choices.
They might draw their spacecraft, label its parts and explain how it would work in space.
Teachers often ask for practical ways to make the solar system exciting for pupils. Here are answers to popular questions about activities, games and resources for Key Stage 2.
Try a planet size comparison using fruits or different-sized balls for each planet. This gives children a clear sense of the size differences between, say, Mercury and Jupiter.
Card sorting games work well for teaching planet facts. Pupils match planet names to characteristics like colour, number of moons or place in the solar system.
A space station design challenge gets pupils thinking creatively and learning about what astronauts need. Children work in groups to plan and build a model station with cardboard, foil and other craft supplies.
Solar System Scoot gets everyone moving as pupils rotate around desks answering questions about planets, the sun and the moon. The fast pace keeps things lively.
Code breaker worksheets challenge children to solve number or symbol codes that reveal space words. These make good starters or quick activities for early finishers.
Interactive quizzes help you check what pupils know at the start and end of a topic. Many quizzes can be done on tablets or computers.
Planet bingo puts a space twist on the classic game. You call out clues like “the red planet” or “has rings made of ice and rock” and pupils mark their cards.
Twinkl has downloadable worksheets for crosswords, word searches and fact-finding. Their packs include answers to save you time.
Royal Museums Greenwich offers free activity sheets about how the solar system formed. The pack includes teacher notes to explain the science.
LearningMole provides videos and worksheets for Year 3 to Year 6, covering orbits, the sun and moon phases.
Planet page borders make nice frames for finished stories or astronaut diaries. These give your classroom displays a polished look.
Planet fact cards let each child research and present one planet. They gather facts about diameter, distance from the sun, temperature and special features, then design and decorate their own card.
A solar system mobile uses coat hangers, string and painted polystyrene balls. Pupils put the planets in order and think about their sizes.
Space timeline projects help children see the history of space exploration. They research big events, from Sputnik 1 to Mars rovers, and create illustrated timelines on long paper strips.
Crater investigations are always a hit. Drop different objects into trays of flour or sand to show how meteorites make craters of different sizes.
A scaled distance model works well outdoors on the playground or field. Assign each planet a marker and help pupils measure distances to scale, so they can see just how spread out the planets really are.
Papier-mâché planets let children make textured, 3D models. Pupils can research features like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot or Mars’s Olympus Mons and add these details.
If you want something simpler, use painted tennis balls or foam spheres on wire stands. Children label each planet and arrange them in order on a shelf.
Group projects where teams build one big solar system together encourage teamwork. Each group takes charge of one or two planets and adds them to a shared classroom display.
Year 5 covers Earth and space as a main topic. Lesson plans covering planetary orbits match statutory requirements and offer some genuinely engaging activities.
A virtual planetarium visit can bring the night sky straight into your classroom using online resources. Plenty of observatories provide free educational programmes, letting pupils explore constellations and pick up a bit about celestial navigation.
Moon phase observations make a great long-term project. Children can record the Moon’s appearance each night for a month, sketching what they notice and spotting patterns in the lunar cycle.
Space Day celebrations give you the chance to mix up several activities in one event. Pupils might dress as astronauts, launch rockets made from plastic bottles and compressed air, or listen to talks from space enthusiasts.
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