With the Summer Equinox mere days away, I thought it was a good time to bring up the Earth's tilt and rotation to my upcoming fourth grader. As my son is a visual and hands on learner, I thought to help him grasp the concept I would do an art project with him to show him the Earth's tilt during each of the seasons. I searched Pinterest then the web looking for an easily printable ready-to-go project. I didn't find anything that I really liked, so a few quick clicks in Photoshop and I created my own printable.
It's a simple project only needing colored pencils, scissors, a printer, a paper plate, a Sharpie and glue. The total time to make it and explain was about an hour. I spent a lot of time explaining and asking my son questions to make sure he understood all of the concepts. He seems to have a decent understanding after this project, but I'll probably pull this out again in September for a review and see what he remembers.
1. We started by coloring and cutting out everything on the printable, I've attached it at the bottom of this page so you can use it for your own solstice project.
2. I had my son draw a dashed line from the North to the South pole, then draw a solid line around the Earth where the Equator lies.
3. Next we grabbed a paper plate and glued the sun to the center and the four Earth cutouts to the North, East, West, and South of the Sun on the edges of the plate. This would work better using the top of the plate, but my plates were covered with colored patterns that were distracting, so we used the bottom.
4. The last step is to label each Earth with the seasons, the months, and the solstices and equinoxes. I explained and asked questions, and also used a flashlight and baseball for a more 3D visual aid.
You can download this simple printable here: