The winter solstice on Wednesday marks the shortest day and longest night of the year, but do pupils understand why it happens? The Guardian Teacher Network has lots of useful resources to help you explore the science behind one of the oldest winter festivals in the world.
Earth, moon and sun is a whiteboard resource for KS2 that illustrates why sunrise and sunset times change throughout the year. Pupils can watch an animation of the Earth as it orbits the sun. This allows them to see how the tilt of the Earth on its axis has an effect on the hours of daylight. The resource includes an animation of how night and day occur, and another explaining the phases of the moon.
This week, a new moon occurs on 24 December, and KS3 pupils can explore this further with the interactive science lesson Phases of the moon. Diagrams are used to illustrate how the moon appears to change in shape as it orbits the Earth, and a drag and drop activity allows pupils to test their understanding of terms such as "waxing gibbous" and "last crescent". By the end of the activity, students should be able to recognise the phases of the moon and explain how each phase is formed. The lesson also covers the role of the moon in religions such as Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
There are lots more interesting facts about the moon in the Education Guardian article Sunshine and cheese (http://teachers.guardian.co.uk/teacher-resources/3188/Moon). The piece is useful for reading comprehension tasks, and pupils can find out about superstitions surrounding the moon and the origins of the word 'lunatic'. There are also instructions for how to play the Moon Game — a test of pupils' powers of observation — and details of how to make a moon-themed greetings card.
Earth, sun and moon is a science resource for KS2 with two main activities – one exploring how our hours of daylight change as the Earth orbits the sun, and the other explaining the phases of the moon. Pupils will learn that the Earth orbits the sun once each year, and that the moon takes approximately 28 days to orbit the Earth. The resource pack includes teacher's notes and handy photographs of the Earth, sun and moon.
The phases of the moon are also covered in the KS2 resource pack All about planets . Animations and activities perfect for use on a whiteboard demonstrate how the moon orbits the Earth, how the Earth spins on its own axis, and how day and night are related to the Earth's rotation. The lesson pack includes a worksheet about the phases of the moon with illustrations that pupils have to cut out and place in the correct order.
The Guardian Teacher Network has nearly 100,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. To see and share for yourself go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are also hundreds of jobs on the site and schools can advertise for free http://schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk.