Sun Activities for Kindergarten

Study the Seasons

• Kindergartners are still getting accustomed to the changing of the seasons, so the approach of summer at the end of the school year will naturally bring about many activities dealing with the sun. Study the types of things kids can do in the sun that they can't do in the other seasons, and make paper dolls dressed for summer weather. Make a log of when the sun rises and sets each day (it is best if the teacher marks this or the class looks at a website with accurate measures) and talk about what makes the days grow longer in summer.
  
  

Sun Experiments

• Conduct small experiments with your students to discover some of the sun's properties. Tape some construction paper to the windows and leave it there for a couple of weeks of warm weather. Take them down and compare them to paper that hasn't been in the sun. Or tape templates of shapes onto the paper so that when you remove the templates the darker shapes are evident. Or use a magnifying glass to produce heat to show students how light and heat are related. Use this as an opportunity to talk with students about UV rays and how they can protect themselves from the sun, too.
  
  

Story Time

• Stories and informative books directed at kids are useful for reinforcing concepts you discuss in class. Read "The Cranky Sun" by Jerry Kramsky and Lorenzo Mattotti for a fun depiction of the sun with a personality. For more fact-based books that kindergartners can still relate to, try "Let's Read About Sun" by Susan Nations or "What Makes Day and Night" by Franklyn M. Branley and Arthur Dorros.
  
  

Sun Crafts

• Decorate your classroom for summer and reinforce previous lessons by assigning sun crafts. A simple craft is to make suns out of paper plates covered in yellow, orange and white tissue paper. Show students satellite photographs of the sun so they see what it looks like in real life. A more complex craft is to create a mini model of the solar system using cardboard circles and thread. Make a circle representing the sun and hang it from the center of the largest circle. Hang eight other circles by threads from the outer part of the large circle so they are in a ring around the sun.