With Calvin's help, I have been developing an astronomy program for kids while living in Alabama. I test some concepts out on him, see what he understands and what goes over his head, what he remembers and talks to us about. We sing songs about the planets going around the sun, and the moon around Earth, and he laughs hysterically when we mix them up. "The sun goes round the Earth, the Earth, the sun goes round the Earth." meets with laughter so hard that he can hardly breathe.
Then, we meet about once a month with other families whose kids (mostly about 3-7 year olds) are interested in astronomy and spend some time look up at the night sky. Each night has a topic, but most of the time is spent talking about what stars, constellations, and planets we can see. The kids love it (or maybe I love it - hard to tell if I'm projecting). Some are clearly already little astronomers themselves - they can recognize Venus in the evening sky, they know what the big dipper looks like, they can spin like the Earth. We practiced spinning with a tilt (not easy to do!), I showed them how to find the summer triangle of constellations, and talked about how the stars have names, that night time is when we are on the shadowed side of Earth, and that every year we make another trip around the sun. With such a mix in ages, some of this is lost on many of them. But not all of it. And regardless, the kids love going out at night. It is a magical time to run around and play, the stars shining above, the cool quiet air surrounding.
These nights give Calvin an opportunity to help lead the show. On our first night, we gathered around in the darkest part of the neighborhood park where we were meeting. As the group settled down, Calvin called out "Can everyone hear my mommy? Can everyone hear my mommy?" It was so sweet, and impressively confident. Then on the second night, after a tired meltdown over not getting an unknown-before-I-gave-it-to-another-boy-but-now-clearly-coveted red flashlight, Calvin rejoined the group and declared that it was his turn to explain how the Earth spins, rotating the demo ball so that the picture I had taped to the side moved from day to night to day, in and out of the flashlight's/sun's light. He repeated everything I had just finished saying, pointing out that the Santa Claus picture I had taped on top was the North Pole, etc. He was stealing my show!
This kid has more confidence than I would expect his 3 and a half
years had earned him (not that I'm complaining - I'm just amazed). He has no fear standing up to a crowd of peers and their parents, many of whom he's never met before, and talk with full confidence about all sorts of topics, sometimes astronomy-related topics that we had reviewed the night before and many nights before
that, sometimes random and completely-made-up stuff that make Bryan and I both scratch our heads. Mostly, though, we are just impressed with Calvin's confidence and are enjoying learning about this part of his personality.
We're taking a little break from the Kid's Astronomy Nights until it warms up, which I expect will happen fairly soon for us in Alabama. I look forward to co-leading our next astronomy night with my little apprentice!
