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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Learn about American Samoa for Kids

I recently shared a bunch of dog-themed learning activities in honor of National Pet Month. Now it’s time for the cats (which are actually my favorite, shoutout to Baron and Haru!).

Homemade Heather has a great set of cat activity printable sheets including the life cycle of a cat, parts of a cat, a page kids can fill out about their cat and a little reading comprehension with a cat theme.

World of Printables has a super cute cat coloring page that asks you to color cats of different shapes in different colors and then count them. Like an I Spy, but with cats!

Speaking of shapes, give kids practice tracing basic shapes and writing the words for them (square, circle, oval, triangle, diamond, etc. there are 12 shapes in all) with these cat-themed printables from Tot Schooling. These would be good to laminate so you can use over and over while kids are learning about shapes.

Royal Baloo has a great printable cat pack that includes activities for toddlers up to third grade, so this is perfect if you’re homeschooling kids of different ages. There’s literacy and math activities in this pack, including shape tracing and matching for the little ones, beginning sounds and skip counting for pre-k kiddos and addition, multiplication, writing pages and more for older kids.

Fluffy Tots has a cute printable emergent reader on a cat theme, and Sunny Day Family has a super cute cat matching memory game you can print. Build a cat with the printable from PJs and Paint, or cut and fold a stretching cat with this activity from Krokotak.

1 Plus 1 Plus 1 Equals 1 has a cat unit study and printables for kids who are learning cursive writing. There are also three part cards about cats, a printable on scientific classification of cats and more.

Your Therapy Source shared this cute motor skill idea of using pipe cleaners as cat whiskers, which makes a fun quiet time activity or something kids can use in the car.

Take your love of cats on the go with this printable cat activity placemat from The Art Kit Blog. It includes a word search, maze, word scramble and some cats to color, tic tac toe boards and more.

Older kids can learn how to build Lego cats with these instructions from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls.

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