We live very close to the solar eclipse path of totality, so Monday will be a big event. The kids (3 and 5) have been talking about the eclipse at their schools, but I wanted to do something a little special at home as well.
I used items we had around the house to make an eclipse trofast insert for our IKEA Flisat table and then added a tray of sensory material.
The eclipse trofast bin insert was made with cardboard. I traced an existing insert we had, cut it out, used a bowl to trace a circle in the middle and then cut that out too. Then I painted it all black. I taped one of our magnetic tile base plates on the back of the insert and placed a puck light in the bin before fitting the insert on top. It’s simple, but I liked that we could move the moon piece over top of the “sun” circle to block out the light.
I took a couple books out of the library, so we could learn about how the eclipse will work while the kids played with the insert. I ended up reading the books to them while they played.
For some added sensory fun, I also put out a tray of material intended to represent the moon. I had some epsom salts that I had tried to dye purple for another activity and it hadn’t resulted in the colour I wanted. However, I thought the grey colour it ended up being looked perfect for some moon dust. I put the epsom salt in the tray and added a few dabs of grey decorative gravel to give it a moon effect. For some added space fun, I added in some glow-in-the-dark meteor rocks and resin stars, bowls and scoops.
Materials
- Cardboard
- Black acrylic paint (Dollarama)
- Picasso Tiles base plate (Amazon)
- Puck light (Amazon)
- Metal Tray (Dollarama)
- Epsom Salt
- Food colouring
- Grey Decorative Gravel (Dollarama)
- Glow-in-the-Dark Meteor Rocks (Amazon)
- Resin stars (Little Play Lab Co.)
- Play silks (Amazon)
- Metal Bowls (Dollarama)
- Wood scoops (Amazon)
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This activity worked out great. it was the perfect catalyst for talking about the solar eclipse with my young kids. We are excited for Monday. Will you observe the solar eclipse?