The kids have been interested in the planets for a long while, the solar system is our version of dinosaurs. We talk about The Big Bang, poor Pluto being demoted, planetary rotation... All kinds of questions come up that I gamely try to answer. I have been on the look out for a cool solar system model for the kids and have not found anything that fits my aesthetic or does the solar system justice. So an idea started...
To start, this week for Solstice we talked about the Sun and the Earth and the importance of Solstice as a celebration of light. We played around with the globe a little to reinforce concepts we talk about a lot (continents, poles, directions, equator)...
Then we did one of my favorite activities - wet felting. I love to wet felt because of the textures, fingerplay and pure simplicity of it. I find it incredibly soothing to do and what kid doesn't want to play in soapy water for an hour?
The next day, they performed a little play...
AnaSofia playing the Sun (super serious business here!), Kasper as the Earth...
The Earth in motion around the sun (notice bunnies in Sun and Earth costumes waiting... Understudies, of course!).
Dancing together, beauty in motion!
It was a fun week. Who knows if any of it will be absorbed, I really only spend a few minutes each day talking and then we play a little around it, but it is a little structure to our days that gives me pleasure and they seem to look forward to it too.
My plan is to talk about and wet felt the rest of the planets over the coming weeks so we will have two beautiful solar systems created by summer's end.
1 comment:
So sweet! Love the idea.
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