Explore the Eclipse with the National Parks Service

There are 21 national parks in the United States where you can see at least part of the solar eclipse on Monday, and the parks service has partnered with the Planetary Society and Bill Nye to teach kids all about it with a special Eclipse Explorer Junior Ranger experience.

Kids who visit parks in the path of the eclipse can get an educational booklet about the eclipse and complete the activities to earn an eclipse badge.

But the booklet is available online, too (this is a link to the PDF), and has some great information in it about why eclipses happen, the different kinds of eclipses and how to view them safely.

There are also activities such as thinking about how what your senses experience might change during an eclipse, calculating how old kids will be for the next eclipse and drawing an eclipse petroglyph, among other things.

This would be fun for kids outside of the parks to complete as well and to connect what they’re learning about eclipses to their own lives.

Are you traveling to see the eclipse? I’d love to hear about your plans!

[Photo: Planetary Society.]

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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