Seasons South and North

Use the Grand Clock to teach the Seasons

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 The images above are the four seasons from the Grand Clock : Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer. Each is represented by a character from mythology, so why not use the story to teach the season?

Pomona's visage graces autumn. She was the Roman goddess of fruit trees, gardens and orchards. Having her represent autumn is a clear thought of the harvest at that time of year. She was seen as a goddess who was so dedicated to gardening that it took quite a lot of work for Vertumnus to convince her to marry him. 

Boreas, the north wind, graces the medallion for winter. In the northern hemisphere, the north wind is cold, but in the southern hemisphere, the cold wind comes from the south, so you either will have to change Boreas's wind direction, or change to a local, cold southerly wind god or goddess. The story of the winds tells that they were held in confinement, far out at sea, by Aeolus until a god wanted one to help make a storm. Aeolus would let one free to rampage for a while. Boreas was the coldest wind, icy and wild, the wind that could tear up trees. 

The medallion for spring has Flora, the goddess of flowers. She had a festival celebrated in her honour, the Floralia, in late April or early May. 

Lastly, summer is graced by Ceres, the goddess of the ripening of grain and of the harvest (here Greek name is Demeter). Her tale is told here. Her attribute is a sheaf of grain. 

Activities based on Attributes

• Pomona's attribute is the pruning knife. Show children such a knife, or a picture of one, and explain to them the purpose of pruning fruit trees. 
• Ask a tree surgeon to visit  -- with all of the gear! -- and explain what he or she does in terms of pruning fruit trees and why. 
• Boreas was often shown holding a conch shell, the shell that, when you blow into it, can make a deep howling noise, like the cold winds of winter. If you cannot obtain a conch shell for the children to practice blowing into, you certainly can have howling wind sessions. Ask each child to try to howl in a way that "sounds cold". Divide them into two groups and have a howling round sung by a howling chorus. 
• Use Flora to learn about flowers. Choose a single species that can grow in a pot in the classroom and teach the children the structure of a flower with that example. 
• If your school has a garden in which the children work, why not make a Flora scarecrow?
• Ceres holds a sheaf of grain. Around the world, there are five main grains and legumes upon which all human societies are built: wheat (Eurasia), maize (the Americas), rice (Asia), soybeans (Asia) and potatoes (the Americas). Learn how societies were built around farming these products.
• Make potato prints
• Cook a dish from each of the five main grains and legumes.
• Plant each of the five grains and legumes and see which grows best in your region (under your Flora scarecrow.)

©2010 Anne Morddel

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Seasons South and North

Get Ready for Earth Hour

In a time when all the planet seems to be divided and people eternally at war with one another, when the subject of protecting the environment has become a political dispute, children can become frightened and confused. Few experiences are as uplifting and encouraging as peaceful collective action for the good. Whether in church or charity, marching or standing still and being counted, when it is peaceful, shared and for the good, participating in such action is a profound and reassuring experience.

Earth Hour this year is on the 27th of March. At 8.30pm / 20.30 in cities around the world, people will turn off lights. They will do this as a statement to governments and businesses saying that they care about the environment and are willing to make sacrifices in lifestyle to save what is left of it. 

Take part in Earth Hour. Teach the children about its meaning and give them an opportunity to participate. The official Earth Hour website has numerous educational activities and free downloads in many languages. When you first go to the site, a screen comes up allowing you to choose a country. This will take you to one of the individual country sites, where the best educational  aids can be found (there are not many on the main site.) Explore more than just those for your own country; there are some very creative ideas there. The main site has a game for children if necessary.

More Activities

Make Candles, real or paper

Teach Candle Safety

Invite a Speaker to the Class to talk about the environment

Write an Earth Hour song or poem

Plan an Earth Hour party for the whole class and their families.

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©2010 Anne Morddel

Equinox

 

I am reposting last year's post about the March equinox, as so many readers have asked for the sunrise chart again. 

With the March equinox, the seasons officially change to autumn in the south and spring in the north. "Officially" is the operative word here, for timing of the changes of the seasons is much less precise than we often think. There are not precisely 365 days to a year, so the equinoxes do not fall on the same day every year, or at the same time. 

Myths about the equinoxes abound. 

• It is said that the equinox is a day when the amount of time of light and dark is precisely equal. It usually occurs a day or two before or after. (Hence the name, which translates as "equal night")
• It is also said that the equinox brings a time of storms, but actually, record keepers checking back over 75 years have found that not only are there no extra storms, it is often a calmer period around the equinox. 
• Some people seem to think that on the vernal equinox, it is possible to balance an egg on its point. The success or failure of this peculiar activity has nothing to do with what day of the year it is. 

In spite of misunderstandings and silliness, the basic idea of equilibrium is true.  

• The equinoxes are the only days of the year when the tilt of the earth's axis and its orbit bring it to a point where it is straight in relation to the sun. (An excellent graphic for this can be found here:  http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0020-solstices-and-equinoxes.php)  

• Thus the equinoxes are also the only days of the year when the sunrise is due east and the sunset due west.  
• For those who live on the equator,  the equinoxes are the only days when the sun passes directly overhead.  (See http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090319-vernal-equinox-2009-spring.html)

It is this sense of momentous equilibrium that has effected cultures so that most mark the equinoxes as important days,  from the new year in the Persian (vernal equinox), to being the mid-way point of the season for the Chinese, to being the day from which other holy days (Passover and Easter in the northern spring, and the autumn Harvest Festival in Britain ) are calculated.

The days are important, but how to share an understanding with little ones without it getting too complicated? 

Very young children are not really interested in how the earth goes round the sun or at what angle it tilts. They have only been through four or fine years and so the concept of an entire year may not be entirely firm in their minds.  Day and night, however, are completely familiar to them, as are sunrises and sunsets. 

Play a Sunrise Game

You will need enough yellow or orange paper for each child and a globe. Ask each child to cut out a large circle from their paper and colour or paint it to be the sun. Divide the children into three groups, standing. The group in the middle lives on the equator, which you indicate on the globe. They hold their suns over their heads. The group to the right lives in the northern hemisphere, so they hold their suns to their side, toward the equator, as does the group to the other side, the southern hemisphere. Have them all turn to the "east" to make a sunrise. Those in the north and south keep their suns inclined and those on the equator keep their suns direct as they raise them up high and then turn and have them set in the "west". Emphasize that this equinox is the spring equinox in the north and the autumn equinox in the south. Hang the suns up all over the room for good cheer.

Encourage Solar Observation

Download SUNRISE CHART 

Do NOT encourage the children to look directly at the sun. Do encourage them to notice, every day in the morning, where the sunrise is in relation to their world. If they live where they cannot actually see the sun in the morning, they can note where they first see its rays or where the light is brightest when they have breakfast. Download the Sunrise Chart above, number the squares for the month,  and make enough copies for each child to have one. When they arrive in the morning, before they forget, have them draw in that day's square the object, room, building, or tree, etc. where they first saw the sun's rays that day. This will help them to see that the sunrise shifts as the year goes by, and will help make the lessons about the earth's orbiting that much easier to understand.

©2010 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

What to Look for in March in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres

 
 

One of the equinoxes occurs this month, moving the seasons to autumn in the Atlantic Rainforest region of southern Brazil and to a longed-for spring in Britain.

As nature adjusts to a time of greater light and warmth, here is what you can expect to see in Britain during the month of March:

• Hyacinth are in bloom, (as in the picture above)
• Badgers, rabbits, field voles and lambs are born
• The Magpie and robin build their nests
• The Blackbird sits on eggs
• The Dog Violet is in flower
• Slugs pair !

In the Atlantic Rainforest region of southern Brazil, March is a time of great, late-autumn heat, when everyone feels almost unable to move because it is so hot and humid. Here is what to look for in that rainforest in March:

 

• Cicadas are screaming loudly everywhere and all day long
• The ingã tree is flowering
• The "little bird of seven colours" (pasarinho de sete cores in Portuguese) also called the green-headed tanager, is so hungry it can be tamed with fresh bananas (see the drawing below)
• The magnificent blue morpho butterfly can be seen (see the drawing above)
• The Lenten Tree (Quaresmeira in Portuguese) which is native to the Atlantic Rainforest, begins to flower
• The tiny red tasselflower flowers (below)

 
 
 
 

Observe

Again, use the Nature Observation Chart to note your own observations for the month.

(The drawings above come from the March page of The Big Field : a Child's Year Under the Southern Cross.)

©2010 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

Take One Grand Clock

 

 Introducing the Clock

The fascination of time and its circles is felt by many. One of the ways this has been expressed most artistically is in the design of grand clocks that show not just the hours, but the months, the seasons, the signs of the zodiac, all of which appear in the clock above. Some add the phases of the moon throughout a whole year. A clock like this is a storyland on its own, a place to learn about time, seasons, the months, and also about shapes, imagery and how they help to tell the stories.

Click on the image above to get an enlarged version to be able to show children and explain it to them. At the top, in Roman numerals, it tells the time.  

  

In a larger circle around that, are the months of the year:

 

On the sides are the seasons, represented by mythological persona:

 

Between the seasons are the signs of the zodiac:

Squares and circles abound. Even simple decoration is based on the shape of the circle:

 

The whole clock is a cluster of basic shapes, teaching the cycles of time:

 

 Discussion

Spend some time discussing the clock and all that is shows, as well as its use of the shapes of squares and circles. Especially, talk about how circles have no end, but repeat endlessly. Point out, also, how the number four -- as in the four seasons -- leads to the idea of the square. 

Shapes Activity

Cut out squares and circles to assemble into a clock like the one above. Draw in the numbers and months -- or their symbols -- as you wish. Glue them into place on a large sheet of paper.

Play Vivaldi's Four Seasons while working on the activity.

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©2010 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North