Sunday Solar System

Sundays can be a real challenge for Sam. We attend church for 3 hrs. That is hard enough for adults let alone a kid who is on the autism spectrum and bothered by noise, crowds and who knows what depending on the moment.

The first meeting (sacrament & talks) is with everyone and is supposed to only last 1 hr 10 min. The remaining time he spends with the kids (primary) where half is spent in a class setting with kids his own age and the other half is spent with kids ages 3 - 8 learning songs and doing fun things as they learn more lessons about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I always ask what he would like to bring with him, that is quiet, to keep his hands busy for the first hour. Lately his response has been "I don't know, I will tell you when I get there". Sigh! Today on the way to church he found a roll of masking tape in my basket. It never left his hands. The end result was a solar system across the back of the bench in front of us. I had no clue that our 2nd grader knew the order of the planets, including asteroid belt, kuiper belt (and knows that Pluto is actually part of this) and then for this masking tape masterpiece he added stars at the furthest outer area. I helped hang some planets and he would correct me if I put it in the wrong spot. Some may think it was not the best thing to be doing during such a meeting. But hey, I was happy that he sat with us the entire time without having to "take a break". Thank goodness that cell phones have cameras now. Not the best pictures and they overlap some but I had to capture the impromptu project. Thanks Nick for taking the pics.

Left: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter
Center: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
Right: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto/Kuiper belt, Stars