Classroom Activities
Right from the start, every lesson that I teach about the Sun will be paired with the warning; ‘Don’t look right at the Sun’. While I intend to excite my students in learning about the Sun, I absolutely don’t want them to hurt their eyes. I would recommend this advice be shared by any teacher discussing the Sun with small children.
The Stars, The Sun, and Superman
I will introduce the unit by asking the students to tell me what they know about Superman. I will record their ideas on chart paper. I would anticipate that they will mostly report his powers. After activating their prior knowledge in this way, I will share with them a picture book that reveals Superman’s origin story. I will be using The Big Book of Superpowers by Morris Katz as this book specifically mentions that Superman was born on a planet orbiting a red star and gained his powers when he was sent to Earth with its yellow star, our Sun. Following the read aloud, I will revisit what the students know about Superman and add any new information to our chart from before. If the students do not mention the Sun or the stars, I will ask them guiding questions to help them get there. This may be a good point to close the activity for the day, possibly by having the students draw the hero. The following day, I will introduce the students to a notice and wonder challenge. I will display a picture of stars for them. I would recommend googling the term ‘field of stars’ and selecting an image of many stars of differing colors and sizes, these images are readily available. I will then give the class a moment to study the image prior to asking them to share the things that they have noticed, as well as any questions they have that the picture brought to mind. A carefully chosen image should have students identifying stars of different colors. I would expect to hear about stars of blue, white, yellow, orange, and red. If the students should neglect to share one of these colors I would direct them to a star of that color in the image and guide them to including that color as well. I would also anticipate someone mentioning that some stars look large and other small. At this point, I will ask the students what star looks the biggest to us. They may point out the largest appearing star in the image. At that time I will put up a picture of the Sun and let the students know that the Sun is a star. I will then invite students to explain why our Sun looks so big. Is it the biggest star in the whole universe? This will lead to a discussion about how far stars are from the Earth, and the revelation that the Sun, is really just a medium-sized star but that it looks so big because it is by far the closest star to our home. This may be another good place to stop for the day. I may do so by having the students draw and label their very favorite star. I will follow up our lesson on the Sun being a star by reading Sun! One in a Billion by Stacy McAnulty. This book does a good job providing information about stars in general and specifically the Sun. Our final part of this activity will be to discuss the colors of the stars. Stars are different colors because they burn at different temperatures. Blue stars burn the hottest at around twenty-five thousand Kelvin, followed white stars which do not burn quite so hotly. The Sun and other yellow stars burn at around six thousand kelvin. Orange stars are next followed by red stars which are the least hot stars at three thousand kelvin. Even though they are the coolest of stars, red stars are still plenty hot. Rocks will melt between six hundred and thirteen hundred kelvin. We will then circle back to the ‘Man of Steel’ and discuss how his home star was a red star and our Sun is a yellow star. This means that our Sun is about twice as hot as the star that Krypton once orbited. Hence, superpowers! For our last bit of the activity, I will hold up some pictures of their favorite stars from the prior lesson. Many students will draw the Sun as a circle with straight lines emanating away from it, some may have drawn the 5-point star shape (though this is traditionally a real tough draw for K students). I will let them know that like the Sun, all stars are actually shaped like spheres, though when we draw spheres they look like circles. I will have the students draw 5 stars on a paper and have them color them orange, white, red, yellow, and blue. Once done I will ask the students to write the number 1 next to the hottest star on their page, the number 2 on the next hottest and so on. This will allow me to determine if they have retained our knowledge from the lesson.
The Sun Superpowers Our Weather
The Sun is already linked to weather in the minds of my students, but only in so far as to say that some days are sunny and that the Sun is hot. My students have no concept that the Sun is not just one part of the weather. It is the driving force of all our weather.
Day and Night
One noticeable pattern that we observe is the changes in temperature throughout the day. Student can be guided to recognizing that the temperature generally starts lower in the morning, rises through the afternoon, and drops again throughout the evening and the night. In the past students have expressed to me that the Sun makes things hot when it is in the sky and that things are cooler when the Sun isn’t out. To begin this learning experience, I will ask the students why we have day and night. I will then have them collaborate with peers (in groups of 3 or 4) to share their ideas for an answer to the question. These teams will then be challenged to select one of their ideas to share with the class. I will record these ideas on chart paper without confirming or denying any of their theories. The class will then vote on which of these ideas we would like to use as our official class theory. I will offer that there are ancient stories that explain why we have day and night. I will let the class know that they will be hearing a story about day and night that comes from ancient Egypt. I will then share with the class the myth of Ra, the Sun god. Following the story, I will ask the students if they prefer our class idea about day and night or if they think that Ra explains the phenomena more accurately. This would likely, be where I stop for the day given my typical daily schedule at school. The following day we will talk about what we notice about the Sun. Focal points would be that it is always outside our classroom (our class windows face the East) for morning classes, but that by lunchtime, the Sun cannot be seen through our window. When we go to recess the Sun is mostly always high in the sky. We will also mention that when we go to the buses to go home, the Sun is always on the other side of the school building away from our classroom window. I will express that I does seem like the Sun moves across the sky, just like Ra in his barque. I will then let them know it is time to learn what really makes day and night. I will read On Earth by Brian Karas. Though any book that explains the rotation of the planet as the cause of day and night will do. To drive home the point about the Sun remaining (relative to Earth) still, I will lead the students in a demonstration which models day and night because the Earth rotates. For the demonstration I will place a standing lamp without a shade in the center of our carpet. I will be using an incandescent bulb in the lamp as the shape of the bulb will appear somewhat spherical. The glowing bulb will represent the Sun. I will have each student stand around the edges of the carpet so that they can see our makeshift ‘Sun’. I will have each student point their nose at the ‘Sun’ and explain to them that their head will represent the Earth. Our school will be on the tip of their nose. I will ask them to try and keep their eyes looking straight ahead and to raise their hand if they can see the ‘Sun’ (every student should have a hand up). I will ask the students to put their hand down when they cannot see the ‘Sun’ and to raise it again when the ‘Sun’ reappears. I will then have them turn slowly, very slowly, to their left (I recommend modeling this for the class). As there heads begin to face away from the bulb, they should lower their hands. As they spin back toward the lamp hands should be raised again. After a few rotations, I will provide challenges to drive home my focal points. Challenges will be along the lines of: stop spinning while your nose is in nighttime, stop rotating when your nose is at sunset, and sunrise. This modeling exercise should help the kids understand how day and night work. I will then connect it to the Sun heating us during the day and things cooling down when we are not facing the Sun. If time permits, Greek myth of Helios could be shared during this lesson. There is an opportunity to compare and contrast the Helios and Ra myths that would allow for some cross-curricular learning.
Seasons
Similar to how we traditionally explore temperature changes throughout individual days, we also work to understand the overall weather patterns that accompany the changing seasons in Delaware. Also similarly to day and night, we do not really explore why we have seasons and the role that the Sun (or Earth’s tilt in relation to the Sun) plays in our seasonal changes. I will start this lesson with an anchoring phenomena. I will be sharing a video of the seasons passing, through the use of time-lapsed photography. Videos of this sort are readily available by searching on YouTube. Following the video I will execute a quick notice and wonder related to the video. After recording their thoughts, I will place the students into groups of 3 or 4 and have them develop an explanation for why we have seasons. Much as in the day and night lesson, I will record each group’s idea and have the students vote for which explanation they would like to use for our official classroom theory. Following that I will share a mythological explanation of seasons. Our season myth will originate in Greece; the tale of Demeter and Persephone. Much like before, I will ask the students if our class theory or the Greek myth seems more accurate. At this point we will wrap things up for the day. I will start the following day talking about the Sun and the Earth. I will remind the class that the Earth’s rotation causes day and night and hint that the Sun causes the seasons too. I will then introduce the book Seasons of the Year by Margaret Hall. This book does a good job of not only describing the attributes of each season, it also explains how the tilt of the Earth causes the seasons to occur as it revolves around the Sun. I will then model the revolution of the Earth around the Sun, including the tilt so that the students can see that att different times of year, the Northern Hemisphere receives different amounts of sunlight. In the summer it receives a longer amount of daytime and more direct sunlight and in the winter, it receives less daytime and direct sunlight. I will also connect this to our experiences during the school year. Sometimes the Sun is going down shortly after we get home, other times it doesn’t get dark until much later. Sometimes the sunrise is while we are getting ready for school and sometimes sunrise is much earlier than getting ready for school time. The Sun and the seasons also relate to plants which will I will teach during our unit on trees.
The Water Cycle
Kindergarten students do not connect the Sun to the rain. They see a day as sunny or rainy and when it is rainy the Sun is not around (in their heads). This activity will begin with an experiment. We will take two pie pans outside of the school. One of the pans will be placed on the side of the bus court in full sunshine. The other pie pan will be placed on the north side of the school building, a spot that has a bit of shade all day long. Into each of those pans I will pour the contents of 1 water bottle (12 ounces). The water bottles will be labeled ‘bus court’ and ‘against the building’. Prior to pouring the bottles, I will show the students that they both hold the same amount of water. In the afternoon, we will return to the pie pans. I will pour each into the labeled bottle that originally held the water. Using disposable tin pans will allow me to easily bend them to make this pour a simple matter. We will then return to the classroom and examine our findings. Given enough time, the bottles should now have different amounts of water. It will then be time for the students to team up and explain why. I will handle this process just as I would have done in prior activities. I would anticipate that some students would relate the difference to one pan being in the Sun and the other the shade. I will offer them an alternative explanation from mythology. This myth is called The Rainbow Snake and it was spawned by the Aboriginal culture of Australia. Following the sharing of the myth, I will ask kids if they think their explanation or The Rainbox Snake offers a better explanation. I will then read aloud the book Weather Wise: Rain by Helen Cox Cannons. This is a very simple book mostly about the different types of rain from a drizzle to a downpour. Despite this, in kid friendly language the book does an excellent job of explaining the role of the Sun in the water cycle, which will relate to our findings in our experiment. I will have a small formative assessment for the students as this lesson closes. The students will draw a picture of a rainy day. When they turn it in they will be asked to verbally explain how the Sun connects to rain.
The Sun Supercharges Plants, Animals, and People Too
In our study of trees we discuss the needs of plants that allow them to live and grow. After our study the students are able to report that one of the things that plants need is the Sun. Kindergarten does not really do much with the process of photosynthesis, though I like to introduce the term because young students love ‘big-sounding’ vocabulary. They develop an understanding that the leaves collect sunlight and can use the light as energy to stay alive and grow. They also know or come to know that trees lose their leaves in the fall and do not grow new ones until the springtime. These two ideas aren’t specifically linked in our current curriculum. Following the activity on seasons, I would like to challenge my students to determine why trees lose their leaves in the fall. I will give them the hint to think about what we’ve learned about the seasons. Once again students will collaborate to develop a theory, share their theory with the class, and elect an official classroom theory on the subject. And, once again I will provide another explanation found in mythology. This time the myth is of the North American Indigenous people; the Cherokee. I will share with the class the myth of Why Trees Lose their Leaves. Students can then decide which explanation about the falling leaves seems more reasonable; our class theory or the Cherokee myth. I will then read aloud the book I Am the Sun by Rebecca McDonald. This book does a nice job of explaining what the Sun provides to plants, and even extends that point to the animals and people that get their energy from eating the plants. In this way it is clear that not only Superman is powered by the Sun. This is another spot in the unit that could host the telling of the Helios myth as that myth refers to the Sun as making the plants grow.
Culminating Activity
As a way of wrapping up our study of the Sun I will assign the students a language arts assignment. I will ask them to chose one of the myths related to the Sun that we explored. Students will use the Draw and Tell app for our class iPads (though this assignments could easily be done using any number of apps or programs, or even paper and pencils) to create an illustration that goes with one of the myths. Then record their voice in the app to retell the myth in their words. I would then challenge them to add a second page to their project with a picture of the Sun, and the actual science behind the phenomena addressed by the myth.
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