Sundials!

Your challenge this week is to great a sundial and see whether you can get it to tell the time. You will need a sunny day for this task so it is worth waiting until we have one (fingers crossed!)

Before we had clocks and watches people used sundials to mark the passing of time.

A sundial measures time by the position of the sun and usually has markings for each hour of sunlight. Sundials have something in the centre which casts a shadow over the markings showing what the time is. There are lots of ways to make a simple sundial, you can draw around your shadow from the same central point at different times throughout the day, use stones or even just a simple straw or stick. 

What you need

- A sunny spot

- chalk 

- stones

- stick

- a clock

What to do

1. Find a spot outdoors that is not sheltered and that the sun will be able to shine on easily.

2. Place your stick vertically in the centre of this area. (On a concrete area, you could create a small mound of dirt or stones and push your stick into this.)

3. On each hour, look at where the shadow of your stick falls. Place a stone at the end of each shadow.

4. With your chalk, write the number of the hour next to the pebble.

5. Repeat until the end of the school day. 6. Test out your sundial by checking that the shadow falls onto the correct pebble at the correct time, the following day