The earth is tilting!

End of July 10:30 p.m.

Last week I looked northwest out the window at an amazing sunset at 10:30 (my bedtime).  This week I’ve noticed that it’s getting a little dark before I’m ready for bed.  I’m turning on the lamp to finish those last pages in the book or the last rows of knitting.  The sky and light patterns are beginning to rapidly change.  There will be darkness tonight and in the early morning.  The sky never darkened for two months (end of May to end of July).  On June 21^st the sun rose around 2:15 and set around 23:00 but for those two months the dusk turned into dawn before the sky had a chance to get dark.  I look forward to seeing the stars again but I’ve really enjoyed the many hours of sunshine extending our outside time after dinner.  Last week we were out picking blueberries in the forest for the next morning’s blueberry pancakes.

Living so far north has been an interesting experience for us all.  I occasionally hear Amelia up from bed peaking behind the blinds at a lit sky before she finally lays down for sleep. 

This past winter in January of February Amelia asked one day, “Why are there days?”  Sometimes I give her fairy tale answers and sometimes I get scientific.  I must have been feeling scientific that day.  We sat on the coach and I talked to her like a sixth grader.  I found a speckled ball.  I told her the ball was the Earth and a white spot on the ball was Sweden where we lived.  I continued by getting out the flashlight.  I turned it on.  It was the sun.  I showed her that the Earth, the ball, rotated/spun.  The time it took to fully rotate was one day.  When Sweden first began to face the sunshine it was morning and as it spun away from the sun it became night.  I guess I couldn’t help myself, I continued.  I explained that the Earth also rotated *around* the sun and that took an entire year.  I demonstrated and even showed her pictures on the internet.  I found some great sites on a NASA webpage, probably most appropriate for older kids.  Once again I continued.  I wanted to explain seasons so I told her that the Earth was tilted.  I got out the ball and the flashlight again.  I once again showed her where Sweden was, way up north.  In the winter it’s tilted away from the sun so it doesn’t see the sun for very long each day.  In the summer Sweden is tilted towards the sun so the day has lots of sun time.

Too much information??

At dinner the light was on over the table.  Amelia says, “The light is the sun.  My face is Sweden.  She begins to rotate in her chair.  When her face is facing the sun she says, “It is day time.”  She continues to rotate and is no longer facing the light above the kitchen table.  “Now it is night.”  She got it!

For several weeks she would pretend she would be falling and she would say, “The Earth is tilting!”  We’d say, “The Earth is so big you can’t feel the tilt.”  But she still likes to pretend to fall and say, “The Earth is tilting!”

She still occasionally comments on the Earth tilting and the sunshine during the day.  During the two summer months Amelia went to bed when the sun was still shining and woke up to a brightly shining sky.  Fairly soon the she’ll be going to bed with the sunset.