“Sundials are the poetry of time, written in shadows cast by the sun’s journey across the sky.”
In a world of clocks and screens, learning how people told time long ago feels like a storybook adventure. One of the oldest and easiest tools for telling time is the sundial. It uses the sun’s position and shadows to show the time of day. Our CIE 2 students are excited to discover how sundials work with shadows.
Here’s how it works: as the sun moves across the sky, a stick in the middle of the sundial, called The Gnomon, casts a shadow on the dial. This shadow moves over the numbers on the dial, pointing to the time like magic. The sundial tells us the time by following the changing shadow, showing us the sun’s journey.
Grade 2 students enjoyed learning about sundials with fun. They see how shadows change with the sun and learn that something simple can be both useful and interesting. It’s a wonderful mix of history, science and nature, all through the magic of shadows!
