Ryle's Tito Ninong Ronald and Tita Mai gave him a gift set of educational VCDs. Included in the videos were Math, Sounds, Colors and the Solar System. At first we thought that he will never be interested in such videos because of the manner they were presented. The videos were made way back circa 1990, so they lack the hi-tech graphics, animations and vivid colors and just came with simple narration. But then, Ryle was curiously stuck on the TV when we tried playing them. The video that caught his attention the most is the Solar System. He was very attentive to it. And instantly he was glued and played the video over and over.
That's when we decided to buy him science and astronomy books to boost his interest. And before long, he was able to enumerate the names of the planets from Mercury to the now demoted Pluto . He was able to distinguished the planets upon seeing them especially Jupiter and of course Saturn, his favorite because of the rings. He was able to identify sunspots, satellites, astronauts, space suits, rocket ship, orbits, constellation, craters, telescope and even Galileo. My wife pushed it further by letting him identify some of the prominent moons of Jupiter: Ganimede, Calisto, Io, Europa.
Because of that I was inspired to make him a Solar System Model made out of styrofoam balls which I painstakingly painted. He was so loving it naming the planets.
