Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Shadow Watching


Today, we continued our prep for our Mystery Class: A Study of Sunlight and Seasons. We went outside almost every hour and Alexandra stood in the same place and I traced her shadow. We noticed the shadow was both moving in a clockwise circle and shrinking. After noon (our next time outside was 2:30 pm) the shadow had started getting bigger again. One thing Alexandra realized was that in summer your shadow usually disappears near noon. Now, in late winter, our shadows never got that small. (We'll try to go out mid-day again tomorrow.) Since the sun is hitting us more at an angle, and not as directly as during summer, winter is cooler than summer!
We can't wait to get our first set of sunrise/sunset times on Friday! We're ready!

5 comments:

Rhonda said...

This is very cool! I remember doing this with my older girls and watching their faces as the shadows got smaller. It will soon be Lindsay's turn to try it out. :0)

Robin said...

I love the idea of tracing the "body" of the shadow. When we did this we just used a stick. But yours is way cooler.

Jennifer said...

I love the long skinny 4:00 shadow. Great idea to trace her. We'll have to try it out, too.

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting way to teach about the seasons. We've used the stick too like Robin and we have never done it in winter. What a great visual!
Blessings,
Cheryl

Starr Weems said...

What a great picture! I've been working on a shadow unit with my preschooler this summer. It's amazing how much there is to learn about such a simple subject.

I'm writing a series of articles on examiner.com on inspirational children's activity bloggers. Would you be interested in being featured? It would involve answering 5 or 6 questions via email. If so, you can contact me at starrwd at gmail:)

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