Earth's orbit

Have you ever seen a merry-go-round in a park? It's a ride that spins around and around, and you can sit on it and go in circles. Now, imagine if the merry-go-round was really big and someone put a house in the middle of it. The house is the Earth, and the merry-go-round is the Sun.

The Earth is always moving and spinning. It's like when you play catch with a ball – you have to throw it really fast and straight so it doesn't fall to the ground. It's the same with the Earth – it's always moving and spinning really fast so it doesn't fall into the Sun.

The Earth's path around the Sun is called its orbit. It's kind of like the track the merry-go-round follows. The Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle, it's more like an oval or an egg shape. This means that sometimes the Earth is closer to the Sun, and sometimes it's farther away.

One full orbit takes the Earth about 365 days. That's how we have our calendar year. When the Earth is closest to the Sun, it's summer in the Northern Hemisphere (the top half of the globe) and winter in the Southern Hemisphere (the bottom half of the globe). When the Earth is farthest from the Sun, it's winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

So, the Earth is always on the move, going in circles around the Sun in its orbit. And this is what makes our year and seasons change!