Solar Eclipse Activities for Kids

If you’re reading this when I wrote this, the United States is gearing up for a solar eclipse, but even if you’re reading it later, these solar eclipse activities are a lot of fun to add to space unit or to celebrate some future eclipse elsewhere in the world.

For the 2024 eclipse, you can learn about where and when the eclipse will happen from NASA’s website.

There are actually two different kinds of solar eclipses, partial and full, but they both happen because the moon blocks the sun form view (either partially or completely). If you happen to be where the eclipse is in totality, it will get completely dark. Otherwise, the moon will block most of the sun and make really cool crescent-shaped shadows.

It’s worth noting that either way you don’t want to look directly at the sun during an eclipse because it can permanently damage your vision. (These are the glasses I bought; where I live will be 98.5 percent totality so we’re still going to enjoy it. Check the list at NASA for approved suppliers.)

No matter where you are its super fun to talk about and learn about eclipses. That Bald Chick has a good set of printables that talk about what an eclipse is and includes matching, journaling and a word search activity.

Kindergarten Smorgasbord has a free emergent reader printable book on Teachers Pay Teachers, and for older kids you can download diagrams explaining how an eclipse works and discussion questions (these are from SURFF DOGGY on TpT).

Simple Living Creative Learning has a great printable pack for if you are somewhere you can observe the eclipse, total or not. It includes a diagram to label, fill in the blank fact sheets, a word search and a page for kids to write about their experience with the eclipse.

If you will be where the eclipse is happening, you might also want to make a pinhole viewer, which you can do with instructions from Little Cooks Reading Books.

Learning Resources has a printable page you can color and cut out to illustrate what happens during an eclipse, as well as a word search and maze.

Make a glow-in-the-dark eclipse T-shirt with these instructions from Homeschool Superfreak. And make some super simple eclipse cookies with this recipe from The Newlywed Chefs.

Explore the Eclipse with the National Parks Service

Build a Solar System Model with Quilling

Make a Simple Solar System Bracelet

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Learning about the Moon for Kids

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

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