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Will
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Make a solar system diorama with the FloraCraft kit - styrofoam balls

Just about every student at some point will be required to make a solar system diorama. It is a fun project and Floracraft makes a kit you can buy. I take this kit to another level and show you how to make your solar system diorama spectacular. This tutorial shows you everything including how to paint the planets. And I also have a youtube video if you want to watch how to do it all. (at the bottom of the page)

And I have included in this tutorial a solar system fact sheet for you. Download it and print it up to add to your project. Right here: Solar System Fact Sheet

The completed solar system diorama

Floracraft has a nice little solar system kit you can buy at Amazon, Walmart, Michael's, Joanne or other arts and crafts places. I show you how to take it to another level and make it really pop!

An easy and fast way to make this diorama is to attach all the planets directly to the sun like this:

The traditional setup of the planets

But we are going to do it differently. We will put all the planets on a base and line them up according to their aligment in the solar system -from closest to furthest away from the sun:

Mercury - Venus - Earth - Mars - Jupiter - Saturn - Uranus - Neptune - Pluto (Dwarf Planet)

Our alternative way to make the diorama

Flora craft foam

You will need something to use as a base for this diorama. If you are going out to get the floracraft kit I recommend you also get a sheet of foam. This one you see here is get a piece of foam. I used the floracraft 12 x18" piece that is about 2 inches thick. You can improvise something else if you need to.

Materials needed:

Floracraft solar system kit
A large piece of foam for the base (I use a 12x18" That is 2 inches thick)
Paints: Yellow, Orange, Blue, White, Red, Brown, Green, Grey
Some kind of glue (Hot glue gun, or white glue

If you don't buy the floracraft kit here is what to get:

Ten foam balls of various sizes
A bag of barbecue skewers or thin wooden dowels.

Products in this video and tutorial:

If you love amazon all of these products are available:

Floracraft Diorama Kit
Floracraft handtool kit (This is the plastic blue knife I use to cut the styrofoam. It is specially designed to cut foam)
Large piece of foam for the base
Floracraft Styro glue

Okay! Let's make this project (Continue)

Or you can watch the video here:

Buy Will's book!

See it with a small telescope Available on Amazon.com -

Writing this book has been a wonderful experience for me. I truly love telescopes and astronomy. Well.... you probably could have figured that out seeing as I have a website all about these things! But this book is quite wonderful and I am very proud of it. If you have a small telescope or are thinking about getting one then check it out. In it I have chapters on using a small telescopes, stars, planets, how to take pictures with your telescope and of course a list with star charts of 101 objects to you can observe. Learn more and order it here. (Currently a #1 New Release in it's category on Amazon)