[Brónah Nolan]

I really like the idea of repeating the activity in 6 months time and observing the changes. A great extension activity and lots of opportunities for talk and discussion and explanation of why our days are longer and shorter in different seasons.

[Brónah Nolan]

Create a sundial in your immediate area.

I work with 3rd class so to begin with I would bring the children to the local sensory garden in our town where there is a sundial already there. We would discuss what it is, what it’s used for, what do they notice, what do they wonder?

Back in the classroom we would discuss if we could make our own. What does it need? We would go on a walk around the school grounds to find the perfect place, full sun light etc. We would get our materials ready and in groups on the hour they would measure and mark where the shadow lies with chalk and record the clock time between each mark and report back to the class. Every time the group returned they would fill in an observation sheet of the time, the length of the shadow and anything they noticed.

The class would discuss if they noticed any difference between morning and afternoon shadows. Is the shadow longer at midday?

At the end of the week they would compare their observations in groups on different days. I would hope that they would begin to predict where the shadow would fall before marking it.

Whole class discussion on how the sun moves across the sky.

 

[Author]

Posts