Spinning orange Earth

From the house

• An orange
• A pen
• A lamp with the shade off, or a flashlight on a pile of books
• A dark room

How to play

1. Draw a dot on the orange: “This orange is Earth, and the dot is our home.”
2. Switch on the light (the Sun), darken the room, and hold the orange an arm’s length from it by its top and bottom.
3. Turn the orange slowly: when the dot faces the light it’s day at home, and when it turns away it’s night.
4. One full turn is one day. They turn it and call out “morning”, “afternoon”, “evening” and “night”.

Fit it to your child

• Easier: You turn the orange while they call out “day” or “night” as the dot goes around.
• Harder: Add a second dot on the opposite side for a faraway country: when it’s day at home, it’s night there.

Words to use

• Earth
• spin
• day
• night
• morning
• evening

Why it helps

Turning the orange shows them that the Sun doesn’t travel around us each day; Earth spins, and that gives us day and night.