Teach preschooler sunrise/sunset, day/night?

Question

What do you teach a preschooler about theses things?That the sun rises in the east and travels over the sky to the west? This is what i saw on Gisele big backyard(tv show)

Answer 1

Unless your preschooler is unusually interested in technical explanations (which some might be), stick with the day/night, pajamas/clothes, sun/moon opposites properties.

You can always talk with a children's librarian.  I have never come across a children's librarian who didn't love to recommend books!

If you are asking for your specific child, talk about it in the morning and in the evening, and do go outside!  If you are asking because you teach a classroom full of children, we love to do a pajama day where they can all wear jammies to school.  

Books you may consider are:

Morning, Noon and Night by Jean Craighead George

Night Becomes Day by Richard McGuire

By Day and By Night by Valerie Guidoux

Good Day, Good Night by Marilyn Singer

Night and Day (Turn and Learn) by Helene Montardre

Answer 2

take the kid outside and show him!

Answer 3

Keep it simple, stars at night, moon at night and sun in the day time. Show him on a paper, have him make day on one side and night on the other.

Answer 4

Use a ball or Globe and a flashlight. Choose one person to be the sun (flashlight) and the other to be the earth.

Expand by tracking time with a sundial and shadow experiments one sunny day this summer.

Also, tracking the moon at the same time each night on the bedroom window with a crayon will help the student to learn the phases of the moon. They will like getting to draw on their window with a crayon (a scrubbie will remove it) or dry-erase marker.

Answer 5

Young children probably cannot grasp the concepts of rotation etc. They do understand that things look different when the sun is out and at night. There are things in the sky that we can only see at night, like the moon and stars. Ask the children to have their parents take them outside at night to see the night sky. Childen can also watch shadows and make shadows using a flashlight. They can measure shadows at different times of the day and chart how long the tree shadow is in the morning, at noon and later in the afternoon. The shadows will be in a different location as the sun moves across the sky, but i would not get into too technical discussion. Some children are aware of planets and this can be another topic for discussion.