Table of Contents

As the World Turns

As the World Turns

Brief Description

Night and day are like two different worlds. In this activity for very young children, we introduce the concept of the spinning Earth.

Materials

Pencils

Paperclips

Scissors

Two paper plates

Ruler

Learning Objectives

To show children how the Earth moves (approx) every 12 hours into the shadow and then back into the light.

Background Information

The Earth is like a ball and spins around in front of the sun, which sends us its light and heat. This motion causes day and night approximately every 12 hours.

Step 1

Draw a line through the centre of one of your paper plates to create two semi-circles.

Step 2

Give each child one of the divided paper plates and ask them to imagine how each scene could be a picture of daytime and nighttime. Include the sky as the backdrop and orient the children to the horizon.

Step 3

Ask the children to draw or colour in two scenes on the paper plate, one that represents day and the other that represents night.

Step 4

Discuss in a group and make a list of the differences between the two, e.g. ‘What do we hear at night? What animals do we see? What do we see only in the daytime?’

Step 5

Take the second paper plate and cut out a semi-circle so that only one scene can be seen at a time. Leave a small tab on the horizontal line so that you can fix a paper fastener through the middle of both plates.

Step 6

Pin the plates together with a paper fastener and turn the rear plate to turn day into night.

Keywords

Day Night Earth

Source

Author: Dave DeRemer

License by-sa