Simple explanation of day and night for first graders.

📚 What Makes Day and Night?

Imagine you have a big ball, like a basketball, and you shine a flashlight on it. The part of the ball that the light hits is like daytime! The part that's in the shadow is like nighttime. Our Earth is like that big ball, and the sun is like the flashlight. As the Earth spins, different parts of it get sunlight.

• 🌍 Earth is Round: Earth is shaped like a ball.
• ☀️ Sun's Light: The sun shines on Earth.
• 🔄 Earth Spins: Earth is always spinning around and around. It takes 24 hours for the Earth to spin once.
• 🔦 Daytime: When the part of Earth where you live faces the sun, it is daytime.
• 🌙 Nighttime: When the part of Earth where you live turns away from the sun, it is nighttime.

👩‍🏫 Teacher's Guide: Day and Night for First Graders

Objective: Students will be able to explain the basic concept of day and night and how Earth's rotation causes them.

Materials:

• 💡 A globe
• 🔦 A flashlight
• 🖼️ Pictures of day and night

☀️ Warm-up (5 minutes)

• 🗣️ Ask students: "What do you do during the day? What do you do at night?"
• ✍️ Write their answers on the board.

🧭 Main Instruction (20 minutes)

• 🌍 Use the globe and flashlight to demonstrate how Earth's rotation causes day and night.
• 🔦 Shine the flashlight on the globe. Explain that the part of the Earth lit by the flashlight is experiencing day.
• 🔄 Slowly rotate the globe, showing how different parts of the Earth move into the light (day) and out of the light (night).
• 🖼️ Show pictures of activities people do during the day and night.
• ❓ Ask questions: "When we have day, what do you think people on the other side of the Earth are having?"

📝 Assessment (10 minutes)

• ✅ Have students draw a picture of what they do during the day and what they do at night.
• 🗣️ Ask students to explain to a partner how day and night work.

💡 Extra Tips

• 🎬 Show a short video about day and night.
• 🎨 Have students create a model of the Earth and Sun using construction paper.