Build a Shadow Clock
One stick in the ground and a handful of pebbles turn sunlight into a working clock. Over an afternoon your child watches the shadow travel and marks the hours.
What you need
- Straight stick, or a pencil in a lump of plasticine
- Pebbles or chalk
- A watch or a phone
- A sunny patch of ground
How to play
- Push the stick upright into the ground where the sun shines all afternoon.
- Mark the tip of its shadow with a pebble and remember the time.
- Come back every half hour and put down another pebble.
- Lay the pebbles out in a row and look at the fan the shadow has drawn.
- Ask your child to guess where the next pebble will go, then check.
- Learn to read the time from your marks without looking at a clock.
