Here comes the sun


We read a book about “renewable” energy and discussed the difference between resources that can run out and ones that don’t. We know that the sun is a resource that doesn’t run out.  We see it almost every day in Florida! 
On this day we had a great conversation about the sun. We asked the children what are things they know about the sun and got a lot of answers. One friend told us, “it’s in outer space”, another, “It comes in the morning, and goes away at night”. Someone was very quick to say, “it doesn’t come and go anywhere it just stays in outer space”, adding, “the Earth spins around the sun, that makes it day and night”.  Everyone agreed on some basic information it’s “hot” and it’s “bright.”  Another friend wanted us to know that it’s “a big fire star because it’s a star that’s on fire”.  Someone said, “it melts ice cream” and, “it makes people warm”. Somehow it seemed easier for most to grasp on some level that the sun can be an energy source. 


In our studio we set up a provocation that invited the children to paint the sun. We talked about how you can’t look directly at the sun so how do we know what it really looks like? 
How would you paint the sun? 





We had an old paper lantern lamp that we thought might look pretty cool if we painted it the colors of the sun. 


So now we have our own sun that lives in our studio. 






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