Tag: sundial

Shadow Chalk Experiment

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Shadow Chalk Experiment (5)

Travis has made sundials before, but never before has he used his whole body for the activity! This might be the coolest version we’ve tried yet.

Okay, so it wasn’t as precise as past versions, since the measurement (your body!) is big and you have to remember to pop outside. But at 9 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. intervals, Travis stood with his feet in the same spot on our patio. He held a big stick for extra effect and struck a dramatic pose.

Shadow Chalk Experiment (1)

Each time, I traced his outline and marked the time.

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Sure enough, it was long and aimed to the south in the morning, short and stubby at 1 p.m, and long and to the north by late afternoon.

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If your kids want to, have them color in their shape each time with fun patterns or colors! Travis preferred to leave his blank, but we still had a neat record of the sun’s passing by the end of the day.

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DIY Sundial

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DIY Sundial (7)Of the various ways Travis and I have made a sundial, this was by far easiest for him to keep up with – and the prettiest! Thanks to a vacation day off from school, we were consistent about popping out every hour, too. The secret? Play dough.

To start, we pushed a wooden dowel in a big blob of play dough. Press the play dough firmly onto an outdoor patio or similar surface. Stretch a line of string for accuracy along the shadow that the dowel casts, and set down a second blob of play dough.

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We started at 7 a.m., so marked this off as the first hour: Insert a toothpick, numbered with the time of day. (Note: you can make these “flags” much more elegant than ours, which were just taped-on strips of paper labeled with the hours from 7 to 4 p.m.).

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Being as accurate as we could, we dashed out around each hour over the course of this sunny day and set down a new blob of play dough and new toothpick flag. The colors looked great as they accumulated over the course of the day!

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We lost out winter sun after 4, so that was the final point of our clock.

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But Travis was wowed seeing this visual arc of how the sun had traveled. Definitely the best sundial he’s made yet.

DIY Sundial (6)

Sundial

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Sundial (12).JPG

Last summer Travis helped make two DIY versions of a sundial, but he was really too young to understand how we were tracking the sun. This year, he was ready, and our model a bit more precise!

First, he traced a circle on a piece of sturdy poster board.

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Cut out and find the exact center of your poster board by measuring halfway lengthwise and crosswise.

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We used a dowel as our centerpiece, and used clay to hold it in place; Travis pressed down the clay, and then made sure the dowel was nice and secure.

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We headed out the next morning as soon as sunlight hit the patio, and I showed Travis how to trace a straight line along a ruler following the dowel’s shadow.

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I pointed out how looong the shadow was this time of day, too, and challenged him to notice how that would change as the day went on.

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We missed a few morning hours because we were out and about! But by 1 p.m. we were steadily marking on the hour. As we had guessed, the dowel’s shadow was much shorter in the middle of the afternoon, then began to lengthen again.

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After 5, we lost our sunlight on the patio!

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So now it was time to head inside and decorate the sundial. Dot markers were the perfect tool for the job!

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Travis loved the way it looked and now has a neat visual of the sun’s path across the sky each day.

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DIY Sundial – Two Ways!

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Sundial (4)

Summer is the perfect time to give kids a visual of how the sun moves across the sky during the day. Here are two ways to mark off the hours and watch the shadows move!

For our first sundial, we poked a straw through a paper plate, and set it securely between two planks of a back deck (alternatively, place in the yard with enough dirt around the straw to hold it firmly in place).

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It was early when we started, a long 9 a.m. shadow, which Travis helped mark off.

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We had to work around the sun a little bit (which disappeared behind the clouds a few times), but as we added hours, Travis could see how the shadow not only was shortest at mid-day, but also moved around the plate in a circle.

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For a full-body experience, turn your child into the sundial! Sketch their outline with chalk at various points of the day, noting both location and length.

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After a full day’s cycle, they’ll be able to see how shadows move.