In the book I read, it mentioned that a Mercury year lasts 88 days. The kids were over the moon (he he) to find out how old they would be if they lived on Mercury. To do this, I multiplied their age by 365 to find how many days old they are (approximately). Then, I divided that number by 88. Earth age x 365 / 88 = Mercury age. They couldn't believe that I would be 137 on Mercury! (Please note, this isn't exactly accurate because it doesn't take into account the fact that 1 day on Mercury lasts 2 months on Earth, but it got the point across that time is different on other planets because their distance from the sun and how fast they rotate.)
The kids loved their string of planets. I was actually surprised by how much they liked it. Many of them wanted to see their string flutter or fly as they walked around the room.
We don't have school tomorrow, so we'll continue our planet study on Monday. It's a repeat activity from last year, but I know the kids will enjoy it because it involves paint.
I'm trying to decide whether I should plan two more weeks of different activities or recycle all the same activities for our second round. If it'll be like last year, I'll end up having pretty much the same kids as these first two weeks.