via GIPHY Illustrated GIF by Teresa Villegas (to replay gif simply refresh this page in your browser) Yeah! It's Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere! It happens at the same instant for all of us, everywhere on Earth. In 2015, That’s on December 22 at 4:48 Universal Time (on December 21st at 10:48 p.m. CST for us in the USA) It’s when the sun on our sky’s dome reaches its farthest southward point for the year. We are now in mid winter (contrary to the common misnomer as "the first day of winter") and this solstice has its shortest day and longest night of the year... Here Comes the Sun! Celebrate!! Being a parent is what inspired me to write and illustrate...
This short video explains the Winter Solstice in an easy and concise way. An excellent reference for classrooms and home learning. We have many more interesting videos (and music) about the Winter Solstice on our youtube channel. The music is very nice to play while students are cutting, folding and having fun with all the activities. Enjoy!
"I cannot tell you how charming this book is. It's just a delight and the illustrations are stunningly beautiful. It's just such a peaceful book and it feels like it does on Winter Solstice." - Debra Lynn Dodd
So fortunate to have been a guest for this online radio show. Debra's generous and informative site inspired me while researching the Winter Solstice and its duration of sunlight this time of year. We share why we both love the Winter Solstice and a bit about my book. Listen to the online radio interview here: http://www.debralynndadd.com/toxicfreetalkradio/celebrating-winter-solstice-3/
Yeah! "How to Celebrate Winter Solstice" Ebook is featured on BookHearts.com! A website that offers ebook bargains. This ebook is regularly $4.99 but now it's only $2.99 until December 14th. http://bookhearts.com/ scroll all the way to the bottom (children's middle grade) Get a copy soon, Winter Solstice is right around the corner!
Today I got to spend time with 4th, 5th, and 6th graders talking about Winter Solstice at a local (Phoenix, AZ) elementary school. Lots of fun folding and cutting paper! They were all concentrating so well - some chose the more complex polyhedrons and were pleasantly surprised that they intuitively knew how it all came together. I love it when they trust themselves to figure it all out; to stay with it and then they love that they were able to do it on their own!
There's something magical about folding polyhedrons. I think it's because they are going from a two-dimentional flat (polygon shape) paper into a three-dimentional (polyhedron) form. Tape is pretty magical too; nothing like tape to make everything come together...
