Having come to the end of the walk, you may turn your class around and retrace your steps. Re-counting the numbers gives a second chance to learn them, and looking for the little objects re-emphasizes how lost they are in space.
It works well, in this sense: everyone pays attention to the last few counts- "240...241...242"-wondering whether Neptune will come into view. But it does not work well if the peanut cannot be found, which is all too likely; so you should, if you plan to do this, place the objects on cards, or set markers beside them (large stones, or flags such as the pennants used on bicycles).
Also, the Sun ball perhaps cannot be left by itself at the beginning of the walk-it might be carried off by a covetous person if not by the wind-so send someone back for it when the walk has progressed as far as Mars.
(I once, having no eight-inch ball, made a colored paper icosahedron, and had to give chase for afar when I saw someone appropriating it. On the return from another walk, I met a man holding his mouth while his worried companion said "Did you bite it?"-incredibly, he had picked up one of the peppercorns! The other edible planets are, of course, prey for passers-by. Hazards like these may be regarded as our model's counterparts of such cosmic menaces as and black holes.)
On each card, the child who recovers it may write briefly the place where it was-"At 5th Street," "At John Cabonie's hours"... Then, back in the classroom, the objects as kept in a row on a shelf, as a reminder of the walk. Or they may be hung on strings from a rafter.
Since pecans, pinheads, peanuts, and especially peppercorns cannot always be readily found when another demonstration is called for, I keep at least one hand, in one of the small canisters in which 35-millimeter film is sold.
Anyone you take on this planet-walk may finish it with a desire to set eyes on the planets themselves. So it is best to be able to do it at a date when you can say: "Look up there after dark and you will see [Jupiter, for instance]."
Thus on the first nights of 1990, when darkness falls, Jupiter will be the brightest "star" high in the east of the sky, and Venus will be the brightest one setting in the west.
For any other specific times, consult the Astronomical Calendar, the magazines Sky & Telescope or Astronomy, or a local college science department, planetarium, or amateur astronomer.
Back to Earth as a Peppercorn