Today marks the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The word “Solstice” comes from the Latin words for “sun” and “to stand still.”<\/p>\n

Here are some facts about the Summer Solstice, and activities you can do with your kids to help them understand a bit better.<\/p>\n

Sunrise, Sunset<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Fact:
\n<\/em>The Summer Solstice marks the day on which the sun appears above the horizon for the longest period of time, the day on which the sun reaches the highest point in the sky and the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

Activities:
\n<\/em>– Have your child guess the times of sunrise and sunset in your location and see how close he\/she is. (Here in Illinois the sunrise today was at 5:18 and sunset is at 8:31.)<\/p>\n

– If their math skills permit, have them calculate how much dayight that is.<\/p>\n

– Have your kid guess how much less daylight there will be tomorrow, next month or on the last day of the year using timeanddate.com<\/a>.(I’d tell you if I knew where you lived, but it’s different for everyone depending on your latitude.)<\/p>\n

Feelin’ Hot, Hot, Hot<\/strong>
\nFact:<\/em>
\nChances are that while it is warm where you are today, it’s going to be warmer in July. Just because the sun is highest in the sky and for the longest amount of time doesn’t make this the hottest day of the year. In the Northern Hemishpere, that typically comes in late July<\/p>\n

Activity:
\n<\/em>You can explain it to your children with a demonstration in your kitchen sink, explained by Cornell astronomers here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tropic of Cancer<\/strong><\/a>
\nFact:<\/em>
\nOn the Summer Solstice, the sun reaches its most northern point. The sun is at a zenith, directly above the Tropic of Cancer. The Tropic of Cancer is at 23.5 degrees north latitude.<\/p>\n

Activity:<\/em>
\nSeize this opportunity to teach your tween about latitude, longitude and the Tropic of Cancer, Equator and Tropic of Cancer. Break out a globe and ask them to find those three lines. They can then check out what countries are along the Tropic of Cancer, and even get a visual for why it’s different in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.<\/p>\n

Start of Summer, or Not?<\/strong>
\nFact:<\/em>
\nThe Summer Solstice marks the first day of summer using astronomical definition of seasons. But meteoroligcal summer is considered to be June 1st.<\/p>\n

Activity:
\n<\/em>Have your kiddos look up the definition of summer. Does it match? And what do they consider the start of summer? Probably when school gets out. It’s a good way to talk about how people define words and events by what’s important to them, and to remember that different people see things differently.<\/p>\n

Celebrating the Solstice Is Not New<\/strong>
\nFact:<\/em>
\nThe ancients built Stonehenge between 3,000 to 2,000 BC\u00a0 in Wiltshire, England, and it illustrates how carefully our ancestors monitored the movements of the sun, way before modern technology made it easy to do so. Stonehenge aligns with the sun on the Summer Solstice and the rising sun appears to balance on the Heel Stone.<\/p>\n

Activity:
\n<\/em>Read the children’s book Secrets of Stonehenge<\/a> by Mick Manning. You can also have your kids research the Bighorn Medicine Wheel in northern Wyoming, which has stones that indicate the direction of the rising and setting sun during the summer solstice.<\/p>\n

You may also like:<\/strong> 10 fun giraffe facts for World Giraffe Day<\/a><\/p>\n

Prior post: <\/strong>Cure for Rainy Day Blues: A Summer Dessert Party<\/a><\/p>\n

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Today marks the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The word “Solstice” comes from the Latin words for “sun” and “to stand still.” Here are some facts about the Summer Solstice, and activities you can do with your kids to help them understand a bit better. Sunrise, Sunset Fact: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2298"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6276,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298\/revisions\/6276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}