This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Learning Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Winter Solstice and Christmas
Science -
Learn how the earth moves - make a model of the earth/sun system with a globe, thermometer and strong lamp to see how the angle of the light affects the temperature.
Point out that the southern hemisphere is experiencing their summer solstice.
Look at how the date of the solstice changes year to year here
Simple explanation of the solstice written for kids by National Geographic Kids
Build your own Stonehenge! Directions here
Suite101 has some Awesome Christmas science, including What was the star of Bethlehem, what are frankincense and myrrh, and exactly how fast does Santa have to travel?
History -
Read together from http://www.candlegrove.com/solstice.html
Learn about the evolution of Christmas at http://www.oldandsold.com/articles03/santaclaus4.shtml
Nice overview for younger kids here - http://www.brownielocks.com/wintersolstice.html
Wikipedia has a pretty good history overview of how our Christmas celebration came to be here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
Most comprehensive listing of various cultures'/religions' winter celebrations at Religioustolerance.org
History of Christmas from the History Channel
Math -
Make a graph of the sunrise and sunset over the next few weeks to observe the shortening and then lengthening days.
Fractals of Christmas
Celebration ideas -
Great things to think about and ideas here!
Don't be put off if you are Christian! The ideas and sentiments here are great!
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6 Responses to “Winter Solstice and Christmas”
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December 11th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
What a fascinating study (and some interesting links)! Thanks for sharing.
December 11th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Awesome to know that performancing firefox works here on the site.
December 11th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Wow, what great resources. Thanks!
December 12th, 2006 at 7:33 am
I love the idea of the graph for sunrise and sunset.
We’re gonna do it! Thanks for some great ideas and links!
December 13th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Great links! Thanks.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Check out the hot new items to hit the shelves this Christmas that I’ve found to be great gifts for the my kids or even a freind. Photokinz is a plush animal that has a digital photo frame in its belly, and i-Sing is a portable handheld Mp3 karaoke player and I just know my 11 and 9 yr old daughters are going to love them. If anyone wants to find any information on these new items you can go to http://www.itsoutrageous.com! It’s a Great Buy!