Recently, Nicole surprised us with a really cool song from school. Check out how she remembers the planets in our solar system:

(Sing this to the tune of “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes”)

There are eight planets going round the sun

There are eight planets going round the sun

Mercury Venus Ear-th

Mars Ju-pi-ter and Saturn

Uranus Neptune going round the sun

When I first heard it, I actually clapped in pure astonishment. It was a fantastic song, and she knew the names of the planets and all in order! (cos I didn’t know!)

Well, we asked her questions about the solar system, and she was really quite a little expert at it! Things she learnt (and we learnt too):

1. Pluto is the furthest away from the sun. And it is so so far away, we can’t really see it. So it is not really a planet.

2. Mars is red, only Earth has water

3. The earth moves around the sun, and it also rotates itself

4. We all live in a solar system called Milky Way

5. She could identify the planets based on pictures we shown her!

Oooohhh aren’t you impressed? She’s four-and-a-half, and knows so much!

That’s not all! Out of this *deep* interest in planets, she requested the following for her birthday present this year:

1. A telescope that we can put in the house, so that she can see all the planets! (haha…I’m not even sure if our Science Centre has that powerful a telescope!)

2. A BIG book on planets. She says our current ladybird one is too small, she can’t see all the pictures of the planets.

Request 1 was easy to settle. We told her, we need to find such a good telescope. We don’t think it’s sold in Singapore! As for Request 2, my initial reaction was, ok. I’ll get it for you.

I felt really guilty after a week of persistent asking. I mean, my daughter is asking for a BOOK, and a EDUCATIONAL one… why am I so hesitant to get her that? I can save that for requests for PSP, iphones, toys, chocolates, ice creams etc…!!

So this week, we brought her to Borders to choose her Big Book on planets. This is what she chose! And I really like it too! Not too wordy, easy to understand, nothing overly scientific!

She is one happy Planetary Scientist!

Tips for Parents:

Songs make learning really easy! The tunes have to be catchy so they pick it up real fast. So it does help for us parents to up our repertoire!