Northern Lights Lesson Plan Resources

We had an impromptu lesson tonight on the Northern Lights as we were able to see them in our backyard! It is times like this that I truly love Google and the amazing resources we have available to us!

We spent about a half hour outside looking at them not talking about anything just watching them, noticing the colors and calling everyone we knew and told them to look outside. After they faded we went inside and they came back and we watched from inside for awhile until it appeared they were done for the night.

We came inside and I had each child draw a picture on their own of what they saw - using red, green and purple markers on a blue sheet of paper. We labeled and dated them and then started to talk about what they were. I wanted to embrace the beauty and wonder of them first and then explain them.

We looked online for several resources and found a bunch of great ones. The best by far for younger children can be found at Auroras: Mysterious Lights in the Sky. This is a nice story with a good amount of information and some nice pictures and facts at the end. Definitely the site they most enjoyed.

Several others we used were: Aurora's: Paintings in the Sky Northern Lights and Spacetech Orrrery. We also wrote a blog entry and Rhia drew a diagram of the process including the sun, earth, solar wind, magnetic fields and northern lights. Then we finished up with a coloring sheet and rereading the online story I cited above.

It was a great, easy and memorable lesson that shows why I love homeschooling! The whole lesson from start to finish including this blog entry was about an hour and a half, including a nearly the first hour being just watching and drawing them. That included research, "lesson planning" and recording. Ah the beauty of the internet age and the "answer box".


Peace,
Tenn