Summer Science - Night

My kids love the fun we have when we do our summer science so this week we got into studying things on the darker side--night.  We started by introducing a little astronomy and then moved into nocturnal creatures.

To begin, we read Our Stars by Anne Rockwell, which does a pretty good job of introducing astronomy at a young child's level. 

Then, knowing the experiments coming up, we familiarized the kids on specific vocabulary.  As a family we ran to each room that had a dimmer switch (5 in all) and turned the lights up and down, shouting out our keywords of bright and dim.  They were interested in knowing what makes some stars bright while others are dim.

To determine what has an effect on a star's apparent brightness we did three experiments later in the week. First we got their attention by singing the beloved "Deep in the Heart of Texas" while clapping in time with the song.  A love of this song was sparked with my second most favorite scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)!

The first being the horrifying tale of Large Marge!

Okay, enough digression!  Back to Summer Science - Night!  So we introduced the stars theme with the song and reviewed "dim" and "bright." The first experiment was to demonstrate that a star's size affects it's apparent brightness.  We covered on flashlight with newspaper and poked a little hole in it.  The other was left as normal.  We held them equal distances from the wall and determined that a larger star produces more light.

The second experiment again used two flashlights but one much further away from the wall than the other.  We found that the closer the flashlight the brighter the outcome.  So we know that closer stars seem brighter.

Following that we considered the third factor that determines a star's apparent brightness.  We turned the stove burners on low and high.  We saw that the hotter burner appeared brighter.  We know that the hotter a star is the brighter it looks.  We also looked at pictures in Stars by Steve Tomecek to see that the temperature of a star affects its color as well.

Next we talked about constellations.  I primed them with simple connect-the-dot activities pointing out how they formed a picture.  Later we explained that ancient people made pictures out of groups of stars. 

I saw a great idea on Pinterest (as seen here) but made a cheap homemade version of the constellation cards using old sugar boxes and 3 different size hole punches.  They turned out pretty cool.

We told them that the made up pictures, when we gaze at the sky, only show stars, not the lines--like a connect-the-dots that hasn't been drawn on.

Then Neal pulled up a couple of his cool apps and showed the constellations with and without pictures in the sky in real time.

We then approached the next obvious heavenly body seen at night.  We went outside and viewed the moon in the daytime.  We talked about it's shape--that it wasn't full or half even.  It was gibbous.  That was even new vocabulary for me.

To talk more about the phases of the moon we did a sweet activity. Literally.

 They were quizzed on their new words and then as a bonus, they ate the project.

I had to ask 3 friends if they had Oreos because I did not want to buy a whole package because I am weak and I knew I would eat the whole package minus four Oreos.  I tried to find the little snack 6 pack but came up empty.  Thanks Cherri for the goodies!

The same evening we were happy to visit with Opa and Oma.  Oma is an animal when it comes to working out.  She is part of a triathlon team and is really putting in the effort and the hours to reach her goals.  She is even doing a mini-triathlon.  Given that, we asked if we could use her bike for our next experiment related to the moon.

To demonstrate that the moon does not give off it's own light, we viewed her bike reflector with and without a flashlight on it.  It, of course, needed the flashlight to reflect and create light, just as the moon reflects the sun's light.  Thanks Oma!

We also viewed Oma's moon flowers.  A healthy plant in their backyard until their dogs mauled them.  Still, there were a few buds closed when we started swimming that evening and when we left, they weer just starting to open up.  Oma emailed us a picture so we could discuss how they open up in the dark, later in the evening.  This helped to kick start our discussion of nocturnal life.

We read the awesome book Forest Bright, Forest Night by Jennifer Ward.  It explores the concept that some animals are diurnal while others are nocturnal.  This book is a gem!  It has rhythmic text, a fun turn-it-over format, and hidden details!

We then viewed a few of our nocturnal friends on YouTube and learned a little more about them.  Posters were also, well, posted, to give us the opportunity to learn more about some of the nocturnal animals common in North Texas.  It's fun to quiz them on an animal and for them to point to their guess.

After discussing nocturnal life, we got our craft on and made toilet paper roll raccoons.  Something we have an endless supply of--paper rolls, not raccoons, thank goodness.

We enjoyed exploring the world as it is when we are sleeping.  School is starting soon so I am not sure how many opportunities we will have to address more themes but we may just slip some in as we feel like it.  Good NIGHT!