Shadow Play and Celestial Rays ☆ Kindy 3

Hello, everyone!

What exactly is a day, a month, or a year? Why do we have 24 hours in a day, about 30 days in a month, and 12 months in a year? Where does the sun go at night? How does the moon seem to magically change shape and disappear? Does the moon shine its own light like the sun? Why do our rivers and oceans have tides? These are just a few of the big questions we're exploring in Kindy 3 as we learn about the sun, moon, light, and shadows.

We discovered that the Earth is always spinning. The side facing the sun gets daylight, while the side facing away is in darkness. As the Earth spins, it changes from day to night. It takes 24 hours for the Earth to spin around one time, which is what we call a day.

The moon orbits the Earth, taking almost 30 days (a month!) to go around it. As it orbits, the sunlight reflecting off the moon creates different shapes, like the crescent and full moon.

While the Earth is spinning and the moon is orbiting the Earth, the Earth is also orbiting the sun. It takes about 365 days (a year!) for the Earth and moon to orbit the sun one time.

To get a better understanding of light and shadows we had fun making some spooky shadow puppets! Can you tell what animals they are?

"Look, it's a dog!"

"I want to make a crab!"

"I'm making a deer!"

"I can do a snail!"

"Let's make birds!"

We also observed that shadows all around us move throughout the day. Let's put some tape down and watch them move.

"Look, it's already moved this far! It's only been 5 minutes!"

"It's over here now!"

So why do shadows move? Is the sun moving through the sky?

"No! The Earth is moving! It's spinning!"

Why is the moon covered in all those craters? It's from being hit by meteors, asteroids and comets! Let's make some craters in flour by dropping meteors into it!

We made a big, floury mess, but it was a lot of fun, and we got to see how craters form on the moon!

Space and light are really mysterious and hard to understand, but they are so interesting! I think we all have a better understanding of our world now.