The summer solstice is on Tuesday, the 21st of June! It’s the perfect event to celebrate the end of the school year with your classroom.. Here are some ideas for ways you can mark the occasion with your students. Whether you’re looking for simple activities or more elaborate projects, there’s something here for everyone. So, get ready to enjoy the longest day of the year before you wrap up for the summer!
Sunny Monoprints
The equipment you need is: red paint, yellow paint, orange paint, paint brushes, cotton buds, freezer paper or a laminated place mat, and square pieces of paper to print your design on. Students should sit down and paint a circle on the laminated mat, and draw designs in the circle with the cotton buds!
After they have designed their unique suns, they can place the paper on top of the laminated mat. Encourage students to pat their print on rather than rub as this can smudge the design! After the image has been successfully printed and transferred they can use paint, crayons, or pencils to add on sun rays. Students can then create new patterns to print easily by adding more paint to the circles on the laminated mats. Hanging these various suns around the classroom on the longest day of the year is a refreshing Summer decoration before they finish for the break.
Make their own Sundial
A sundial is an invention that helps you tell the time using the position of the sun in the sky. The sun casts sunlight down on the dial and you can tell time using the shadow! They are the oldest known instruments for telling time. It’s a great way for students to learn about timekeeping without having any electrical equipment or watches! NASAhas created a worksheet for students to make their own sundial! All you need is a printer, some scissors and tape.
DIY Suncatchers
This eco-friendly activity is sure to light your classroom up with colours in time for the longest day of the year! The equipment you’ll need is white glue, food colouring or liquid watercolours, toothpicks, plastic lids like pringle lids, yoghurt lids, or hummus, a hole puncher, and some string!
- Have your students pour their glue onto the lids and swirl it around to cover the whole lid.
- Students should drop one or two drops of their colours onto the glue. Avoid adding too many colours or it will just turn out brown!
- Use the toothpicks to swirl the colour around and create a nice pattern and try not to muddle the colours.
- Leave the lids to dry. Drying time will take one to three days, depending on how much glue is used.
- When it’s dry you can peel the glue off the lid and punch a hole through the sundial! Use some string to hang them up around the classroom. They make for the perfect end-of-year decoration!
Publish your own professionally bound classbook!
With these summer solstice celebrations, you can create an unforgettable memory for your students by turning all of these creative activities and paintings into a professionally bound classbook.
It’s the perfect memory to take them into their summer holidays! 🌞 Get started today on making sure that each child has a chance at being published in your very own classbook — order our easy-to-use kit from our website!