First Grade: The Sun

We're using Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy this year for science.  Instead of using their journal, we've been doing our own lapbook-type activities.  We have to work in small spurts because of everything that's going on with David, but we finally made it through Chapter 2: The Sun.

First we made a size comparison by tracing a dinner plate and using a hole punch.  The hole punch is actually a little bit too large for complete accuracy.

David practiced cutting and handwriting in this activity.  And it's just cool to see how tiny we are.

A million Earths could fit in the sun!  Wow!

Next we learned how far the sun is from us.  Nice effect of the sun coming in through the window, isn't it?

This gave us some much needed number writing practice.  Wow again... almost 93 million miles!

Next, we discussed the importance of never looking at the sun!  I seem to have missed a picture of that, but you can see it in the over view photo below.  David drew a pair of eyes with a red slash over them and practiced writing with, "Never stare at the sun!"

To explain rotating & revolving, we did that fun activity where one person stands in the middle as the sun, another walks around the sun while spinning as the Earth and another person walks around the Earth as the moon.  I was the moon.  I couldn't keep up with David (the Earth).  Elizabeth (the sun) thought it was fun, too!

Again, this spinner thing gave more cutting & handwriting practice.

One of the activities was to illustrate the sun, so David made a sun for the cover of his folder.

He added some solar flares and one really big sunspot also.

We had really interesting discussions about the color of light.  Legos proved invaluable - a tangible way for David, in particular, to grasp what it means for something to absorb the colored light.

Note to self: Get a new silver marker.  Oh, look, there's the "No Eyes" thing I mentioned earlier.

And so we conclude our study of the sun:

Next stop:  Mercury!