Rotation of the Earth

Ok so this presentation is a bit cray cray and hard to capture in pictures.  I tried my best!  I will continue to post as we work through the album on the subject.  I enjoyed doing this presentation with my boys, because......they are boys!  I asked them to gather the materials and they were giddy knowing that it involved bricks, a crazy lamp without its shade, string with a nut on one end and the best part which was so intriguing..........the BATHROOM!!!!  Well, I needed a dark place so what better place than that right?  I mean we are in the basement so it works perfectly since there are no windows.  That being said, don't mind the toilet, shower, whatever else crazy you might see in the background.  Focus on the materials! Ha.

I started off explaining how the Earth rotates around the sun on an invisible string, which is where the nut on a string came into play.  Now, when you are swinging this around your head for the visual, be sure not to whack someone or something in the process!  Pretty sure I hit my eye the first try.  Moving on......I told the boys that I would let them try under my supervision, but that it was not a toy and I wouldn't leave that on the shelf for them to "investigate further" with it.  We all know how that story would play out.  

I went on to explain that the Earth moves around the sun, but that it also turns on itself in the process.  In the picture above, Bubs is the sun and Nito is spinning himself dizzy while he is "trying" to circle Bubs without hitting the toilet or the shower at the same time.

Here is the fun part.  Turning off the bathroom light and turning on the lamp.  The lamp clearly represents the sun and we have the globe for our Earth.  The story continues to talk about how much of the sun's rays actually hit us and what would happen if the Earth did not turn on itself.  The lamp shines on one side of the Earth and then creates a shadow on the other side.  Bubs was quick to announce that this is how we have night and day (he clearly had this presentation with Kui when he was younger).  But for Nito and T-Man, they were just enjoying the presentation..

These charts help to show how large the sun is and how powerful the rays can be.  I don't believe you can see it in this picture, but there is a small circle on the bottom right hand side of the chart on the right.  It represents Earth.  This shows the child how small Earth is to the sun.  The chart on the left symbolizes what would happen to the Earth if it did not turn on itself.  The portion that was in the sun (the flames) would essentially burn up over time and would never be able to sustain any type of life.  The portion that was in the shade from the sun (the icicles) would freeze and also never be able to sustain any type of life.  

I basically stopped the presentation there on that day.  The boys wanted to play a game with the globe and we chose different countries.  They would make the country be sleeping, eating breakfast, taking a nap, etc.  For example, Bubs chose Japan.  He said he wanted to make Japan sleeping.  So, Nito found Japan on the globe and moved it into the shadow of the sun's rays.  Although this was a silly activity, it was a great impromptu geography lesson!