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Lunar Event/Summer Solstice
June 21, 2023 @ 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Join us for an exciting Lunar Event and Summer Solstice celebration at Pretend City! This event is the perfect way to usher in the start of summer and celebrate the longest day of the year with your family.
Art:
- Exploration No. 1> Celebrate the longest day!
- Exploration No. 2> Help us build our community bonfire using paper!
- Exploration No. 3 (Sensory Table)> Engage your sense of smell and explore different natural herbs in our sensory bin!
Purpose: Through these activities, children will be able to connect with their community and embrace their love of summer. They will learn about cause and effect, engage their sense of smell, learn to recognize patterns, and utilize their creativity in fun, new ways.
Math/Science/Movement (TIMES 11am & 2:30pm):
Help us Welcome the Summer Season with a Hike around our Pretend City Outdoor Wildness Space:
Join us in a “hike” that we will take throughout our special Summer Learning Space. We will engage in learning about the essentials to being in the natural world and what our impact is. Once we understand how to respect nature, we will pack a bag, explore all that our learning space has to offer and meet a scientist along the way will explore ideas of heat with us in honor of the heat we will all experience as we welcome Summer!
Purpose: This activity supports children in learning creative problem-solving and critical thinking skills, it explores self-empowerment and allows children to make their own choices, it also allows for connections to be made between children’s selves and the natural world.
Math/Science (will happen during “hike”):
Heat Exploration:
Exploration No. 1-
Friction and how it works: Ask the children if they know that their own body can produce heat.. Leave room for answers, experiences, etc. Engage. Then share with the children that you can show them how to make heat. Have them start to rub their hands together, count to 5. Have them feel their hands on different parts of their body to experience the heat they just made. You can engage more by saying, “Let’s explore and see what happens if we only rub our hand for 3 seconds. What do you think will happen? *Get answers.. We have a lot of hypotheses! Let’s try and see what happens.” Count and engage and then ask, “What happened? What observations did you make?” and so on..
Transition by saying, “Now that you know that your body can produce heat, we can talk about how your body transfers heat! I have a small amount of heat changing moon dough that you will be able to take home and play with later! This dough will change colors once your body transfers heat to it! Parents, this is for you to engage with at home! IF your child is interested now, they can transfer their heat through the bag and it still works!”
Heat Changing Moon Dough:
Exploration No. 2-
We will have this dough ready for everyone to take home and explore!
Making heat-changing moon dough or slime or oobleck. (I think the moon sand will be easiest and least messy.)
This one is a little more ambitious to make a thermometer.
Math/Science Resources for Families (available on the table near programming):
*These resources will be given to families as a resource during programming.
Purpose: These activities help instill a lifelong love for learning while nurturing creativity and curiosity, improves communication skills and language/literacy development, aids in sensory development and the connection to ones self, empowers young learners to engage in STEAM concepts.