How big are things in comparison to other things?

This amazing website allows you to zoom in and out to compare the size of different items in the universe.
The demo belows lets you see - you can slow, stop or zoom in and out as you wish (I made this demo using the screenr website which lets you record whatever is on your screen. If you listen carefully you'll hear my daughter colouring in in the background!).

Planning Science Lessons - Using the Tig Tag World website.

I really can't recommend this website highly enough - after using it last term, I'm now finding it invaluable for helping to teach science. Tig Tag World has background info for teachers, lesson plans, practical activities, quizzes, and more. It's a one-stop place that saves me researching anywhere else.

To give you an idea, the screenshots below show how I accessed what I needed for P6 this term.

We're covering one science outcome:

By observing or researching features of our solar system, I can use simple models to communicate my understanding of size, scale, time and relative motion within it.

(SCN 2-06a)

The website is arranged as a mindmap, firstly with the 3 main headings:

After clicking on Physical Processes, the map extends into these topics:

 ...which then refine further into these:

So, this is the Solar System page. From here I can show videos, photographs and quizzes to the class. By clicking the purple icons on the bottom right, I can access teachers materials.

This shows the teacher's materials:

And from here I got everything I needed to begin a forward plan, and there is plenty to extend the children's learning in whatever direction they wish to follow.

To access Tig Tag World, you'll need Glow log-in details. If you 'd like to look at the site but no longer have yours, I'm happy to share mine until we can get Glow passwords reset.

It might be worth pointing out here, that the next place I look for resources for the children to use in the ICT suite is the amazing topicbox.net - much more useful than Googling millions of websites to find something appropriate for research or games.

Stimulus for Writing

This website has a virtual tour of the grounds of a wedding venue; it would be great as a prompt for writing about Spring or going for a woodland walk. You can rotate the view in every direction, so can look at the sky too. I find using a virtual environment like this can be useful when writing paragraphs - each view of a different item or scene can be written as a different section.
Rather than continuing on down the path, children could write about where the path might lead and make a descriptive piece into a story if they like.