The Sun

On Tuesday, we had our first Four Winds workshop.  Thanks to our volunteers, we learned about the sun and the importance it plays for plants, animals, and humans.  We learned that it would take 1 million Earths to fill the sun.  That is one large sun!  We also learned that the Earth spins and as it moves away from the sun, it becomes night.

The children took part in two experiments  which were conducted outside.  In the first experiment, each child's shadow was traced onto the sidewalk using sidewalk chalk.  After 15 minutes, the children were asked to place their feet on the same spot on the sidewalk when their shadow was traced.  The children immediately noticed that their shadow was taller.  There was a nice discussion about why they thought their shadow was taller.  The children also did an experiment to see what would happen when ice cubes were placed in the sun and when they were placed in the shade.  After about 15 minutes, the amount of water collected from the ice cubes that were placed in the sun were compared to the amount of water that was collected from the ice cubes placed in the shade.

To close out the workshop, the children each shared why the sun was important.  Their responses were recorded on a strip of paper and then were glued onto a large sheet of paper to resemble a sun.