Light Amidst Darkness
celebrating with children
How tall is my shadow?
My favorite hands-on activity for understanding the seasons involves a yardstick
and a whole year. Around noon on each
equinox or solstice (or on the closest sunny
day when you’re together), measure from
your child’s toe to his or her shadow’s top.
Have the child measure your shadow, too,
and record the numbers. After gathering
data on all four holidays, you can ask your
child to guess which shadow was longest,
compare your shadows’ changing heights
with your own heights (when did it come
up to your knee? when was it about as tall as
you? when would it be too tall to stand up
in your living room?), discuss the changing
angles of the sun, read up on our solar system and the Earth’s seasons, and experiment
with a flashlight and a globe.
Snowflakes
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Snow and ice are fascinating scientific phenomena, beautiful subjects for art, and
hugely important factors in the Earth’s
climate and ecology. The winter solstice is
a wonderful time to learn about how water freezes, how our home planet has been
shaped by glaciers, why the polar ice caps
are melting, and what snowflakes look like
up close (look up “snowflakes under microscope” or check out Kenneth Libbrecht’s
gorgeous books). It’s also a fun opportunity
to make paper snowflakes, try to draw the
patterns of frost on your windows, make
snow people with play dough, or paint a
snowy landscape. Those of us who spend
the winter surrounded by snow can also get
out there and play in it, possibly after reading Ezra Jack Keats’s classic The Snowy Day.
Welcome the darkness
My family’s solstice tradition is to turn out
the lights in our home, light a few candles
on the table, listen to peaceful music, and
simply wait for day to turn to night. At
sunset, we drink hot cocoa. The perfect
soundtrack for our celebration is Maggie
Sansone’s album Ancient Noëls.
Light a fire
A bonfire, a fire in the hearth, or tons of
candles can remind us both of humans’ ability to create light in darkness (both l