Hey, all, and welcome to June! The unofficial theme for the next three months is A Summer of Fun. My kids are home all year round, but a lot of my friends are dealing with children done with school for the summer and bored already. (Kids today! Am I right? Haha.) Anyway, summer here takes a little creativity because unless it’s a remarkably cool day or you’ve gone out super-early in the morning, you want to do most of your activities inside.

Today we’ve kicked it off with a little science experiment.

When Grandma came to visit, she brought a cool book for Max.

It features a lot of do-it-yourself weather experiments, but the one Max wanted to do was something he called the “Night and Day Experiment.”

You Will Need:

• a ping pong ball
• a straw
• scissors
• permanent markers
• glue (I used a glue gun, but other glues could work)
• a portable lamp or a flashlight

First, draw the contours of the Earth onto your ping pong ball. Preferably badly – I mean, that would make me feel better about the job I did on mine.

I happened to also have a blue Sharpie, so I colored in the oceans. Once your globe is ready, cut the bendy part off of the straw and glue the rest of it to Antarctica. (I guess if you’re being creative the glue blob holding the straw on could be the polar ice cap!)

Then, turn on your light source:

and slowly turn your globe so your kids can see how ‘night’ and ‘day’ move across the continents. This could also be a good opportunity to show how places near the poles don’t get as much sunlight, and you could even get into seasons and axial tilt if you want to. (We didn’t.)

It’s fun! It’s not too tricky! And the kids loved it.