August 2023, I was visiting my family in Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Enjoying the nice weather outside in our family garden
Gazing at sunspots projected on paper with a pair of binoculars
Mom walks out of the house
I point her the sunspots
2.3 seconds
She says:
— Você tem que mostrar isso pras crianças!
It means you have to show that to the kids.

Cleide Alves (my mother) teaches 5–6-year-olds in our local public school. That short interaction was enough for us to start planning what would end up being a rewarding day of observations at the Escola Municipal de Educação Infantil Solar Urucuia (EMEI Solar Urucuia).

Each class started with explanations done by Cleide with high resolution videos — so the students could know beforehand what to look for on the projected image of the Sun.

I thought very hard about how to explain sunspots to such young students, but putting magnetohydrodynamics aside, Cleide did a much better job by making them realize that just like many of us have spots, so does the Sun.

After the explanations, students would (one by one) have their chance to observe. And that was the whole afternoon, one class at a time.

When the clouds took over the Sun, one of the students pointed that the Moon was out! And then we also had lunar observations.

It was a very enjoyable event.

A few days later I learned from Cleide that the students stopped drawing the Sun with a big smile. Now it is featured in a much more realistic way:

That only took us a day and a pair of binoculars.