Weather School / First Weather · ages 2 to 5
Sunset Colors
Why does the sky only wear orange at the edges of the day?
The mission: guess first, then go look
Guess: when the sky changes its colours tonight, will it start way up high over your head, or down low at the edge of the sky?
Watch tonight and see. The colours begin down low, near where the sun is leaving, and spread from there. The top of the sky holds onto its blue the longest.
On a clear day, the sky wears blue from morning to supper. Then, right at the end, it changes its clothes.
The colours start low, near the horizon, where the sun is going down.
Orange, pink, red, gold. Every evening picks its own mix, and no two are ever the same.
Professor Weather Rock says
Sunrise runs the very same colour show in reverse. The sky wears orange at both edges of the day, and hardly anybody claps for the morning one.
Rocktivity Time!
Pick a door. Every door is a good one.
Move like the weather
Be the sunset. Stand up tall and bright like the noon sun, then sink down slow, slow, slower, and as you sink, spread your arms out wide and low along the floor. Sunset keeps its colours low, right at the edge of the sky, and now so do you.
Ask them
“Which colour was your favourite tonight, and what would you name it?”
The Rocktivity
Before dinner, draw the sunset you think the sky will paint tonight. Afterward, hold your drawing up next to the window. Did the sky copy you, or did it have its own idea?
On a clear evening, try this
Before the sun goes down, everybody makes a guess out loud: the first colour tonight's sunset will show. Then watch the whole show together, from the first colour to the last little glow. No two evenings ever run it quite the same.
Is the rock right?
You looked with your own eyes. The rock is outside looking too. Ask it what it sees, then decide together who read the sky better.
Words we learned
For the grown-up
Here is the one piece of why, for you alone: at the edges of the day, sunlight takes a longer path through the air to reach your eyes, and that longer trip is what leaves the sky wearing orange and red. The full story belongs to an older lesson about why the sky is blue; tonight the whole job is watching where the colours start and letting the child call the first one. Whatever they name tonight's favourite colour, use their name for it tomorrow.
Rocktivity
Take it off the screen
A colouring sheet with the big word to trace, plus the whole lesson in print. Free for any home or classroom.
The trail continues
When the last colour fades, the sky is not finished. A whole other show is starting, the dark one, with stars in it. Step outside once after dark tonight and feel how the air has changed.
Day and Night runs the night shift.