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In our weekly kid testing lab, we're constantly trying out new project ideas for upcoming crates and magazines. With long summer days in mind, we decided to learn how to make our own sundial to tell time using shadows! Follow along to discover how our planet's rotation in conjunction with the sun's angle allows you to tell time.<h2>Learn how to make a sundial! </h2>

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First, start by creating bases for your time markers: roll out little balls of clay, about 1 inch wide. Gently press them onto a tabletop surface to create a flat bottom; this will help prevent unwanted rolling! We made nine, but you can make more - try creating one for each hour of daylight.

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Roll out one larger ball of clay, about 3 inches (7.6 cm)&nbsp;wide. Stick one end of the wooden stick into the clay. This will be the gnomon (pronounced "no-men"), or the center part of your sundial that creates the shadow marking the time of day.

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To create the time marker flags, fold white labels or tape over toothpick ends. Write out different hours on each flag (1 pm, 2 pm, etc). Stick the other end of the toothpick into each ball of clay.

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Cut a piece of string about 10 inches (25.4 cm)&nbsp;long. This will be our guide to ensure our time markers are placed equidistant from the center point or gnomon, which also improves accuracy.

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Now go outside and find a nice sunny spot to place your sundial, where it won't be disturbed. Place your gnomon in the center of where you want to build your sundial. At the top of the hour (ie. 10 am, not 10:30 am), align the string with the shadow of the stick, so that one end of the string starts at the gnomon. Place the appropriate time marker at the other end of the string. Continue placing time markers, with the help of the string, at each subsequent hour of the day.

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By the end of the day, you should have all of your markers placed in a semi-circle around your gnomon, thus creating a sundial!

wooden dowel (or pencil)

toothpicks

labels (or tape)

marker

How to Make a Sundial

astronomy

easy craft

household craft

When it gets dark early, my son and I make a point of looking for Jupiter and Venus before bedtime. He also thought it'd be fun to create our own planets.

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We serendipitously figured out an easy way to make planets by melting crayons on paper plates. As the crayon bits melt they create swirls, stripes and masses that look a lot like planets, at least to my son it does and that's all that matters, right?


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To get started, we first chopped and grated the crayons into smaller pieces. I did the chopping while I supervised my son in the grating, reminding him to take care with his fingers and knuckles! He loved the tactile sensation of grating, particularly the shredding. Though fine shreds of crayon weren't as useful for this project as the slightly larger pieces he created with the larger holes.


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We scattered the crayon bits evenly on the plate, then I put the paper plate in the microwave for 15 seconds at a time, checking to see if the crayons had started melting (I told my son, "This is an adult only step!") .


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Once they had melted a bit, I made sure the crayons weren't too hot to the touch and handed the plate to my son. He began swirling the colors together and covering the plate by tilting it and smashing the melted crayon around with his fingers. He loves a good tactile project, and this one delivers.


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Finally, we cut some of the extra white edges of paper plate away and hung up our constellation in a window against the night sky. "Look mom, we made planets!!" We talked about how planets appear as different colors. Though I was only partly mindful of this fact while we enjoyed the process together, my son was sure we picked blue, green and brown for Earth. To make Mars we mixed reds and browns, and for Venus yellows and reds. Yellows would work for Mercury and Saturn as well. Uranus is green and Neptune is blue.

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For kicks, I made a special Jupiter with yellow, white, and orange plus the famous red spot! I used a butter knife to get the striped effect and hung it in front of our Christmas tree so the lights look like stars. By this time, my son had already moved on to playing trains in his room, but I was still enjoying exploring the colors and textures! He was pretty interested in my Jupiter the next day at breakfast though, so we explored more.
The nice thing about this project is that if you want, you can match the color of each planet, and the relative sizes by using large and small plates and by cutting each accordingly.

crayons

grater

paper plate

Melted Crayon Planets

nature science

moon

Learn about why the moon appears to change shape as it rotates around the Earth.


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Attach your ball to a stick using a string. The ball will represent the moon; the person holding the ball will be the Earth. It will be from the Earth's perspective that you will see the phases of the moon change.


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Shine a light on the moon (the ball). This light represents the sun. You can use a strong flashlight or a lamp (just take the lampshade off to make it brighter).

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Turn off the lights, and - keeping the light shining on your moon - have the person holding the ball slowly start to rotate. You will see the ball begin to light up more.


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As you continue to rotate, you'll see the moon get larger and larger (this is called "waxing"), increasing to a Quarter Moon and then a Full Moon.


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Then the moon will shrink as you rotate back around to the light (sun), until you are facing directly into the sun and the moon is completely dark. This is called a New Moon.


flashlight or lamp

a ball

stick (optional - like a spatula or chopstick to suspend the ball from)

string (to hang the ball with)

Phases of the Moon

earth

art project

art-science projects

luminary

space

STEM

As a busy parent, I’m trying to make the most of our creating time and have really focused on all aspects of the process: brainstorming, making a plan, following step by step instructions, and testing our designs. Now it’s time to put your brainstorming skills to use with a fun project: Glowing Planets.

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Prior to the activity, the adult cuts an X in the ping pong ball. Select a planet. Brainstorm every word you know about the planet in a semantic map, list, or sketch. Read or research online for more information about your selected planet if you want more information. Select the key ideas that you want to use in your glowing planets.

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Marker and make your chosen planet. When the marker is dry, place the ball snugly over the plastic flame of the battery operated tea light. Turn the light on and enjoy.

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If you do not like the way your planet looks when it glows, go back to the brainstorming phase. How can you represent those words and ideas you generated in a different way?

battery operated tea lights 

Craft Knife

permanent markers (e.g. sharpies)

ping pong balls

cardstock, glue and glitter (optional based on kids' design)

Glowing Planets

With this simple device, you can measure the motion of the stars!

Glue the quadrant template to a piece of cardboard, then cut it out.

Tape a straw to the top edge of the quadrant, over the darker stripe on the template. Make sure it's straight!

Use a pencil to poke a hole through the circle in the corner of the quadrant.

Poke one end of the string through the hole and tape it down on the back side.

Tie or tape the weight to the other end of the string.

Here's how to use your quadrant to find the latitude of your house. You'll need a clear night and a place you can see the stars. 1. Start by finding the Big Dipper. Draw an imaginary line between the two outer stars of the bowl part of the dipper. Follow that line to find the North Star. 2. Close one eye and look through your straw up at the North Star. When you have it in sight, have a friend write down the number the string is hanging over. 3. Take the reading two more times. Then add the three numbers together, and divide by three. This number is your latitude!

You can check your results by using a latitude and longitude finder. Just enter your address and discover your coordinates. Check out <a href="http://tinkercrate.com/planetarium">tinkercrate.com/planetarium</a> for a link!

You can also use your quadrant to measure the motion of the stars over the course of a night, or throughout the year.

Quadrant Troubleshooting: Make sure that the string can swing freely before taking a reading. If you are taking a reading by yourself, pinch the string to hold it in place once you've got the star in your sight. Then you can lower the quadrant and read the number. To practice taking a measurement during the daytime, try sighting the top of a tree or a house.

quadrant template - download from tinkercrate.com/planetarium

cardboard (at least 6 inches square)

straw

weight (like a bead, washer, or coin)

string

Tape

Glue Stick

pencil

Scissors

Make Your Own Quadrant

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outdoor science projects

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summer

Are you aware of how the sun moves across the sky every day?  Making this simple sundial inspired in us all sorts of scientific observations!

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Mostly we used paper and a dowel for this. We opted for cardboard for our center... you could easily use a piece of dried clay, if you prefer.

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First Maddie decided how big her sundial should be, and she traced a circle onto the posterboard.

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We found the center by making folding the circle in half, length-wise, then across, and Maddie marked it.

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Since we were using a stack of cardboard discs for the center, Madeleine traced then cut out a short pile of circles, 

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We wanted a pretty covering, so we cut out a larger circle of paper, and then cut a fringe, so that we could wrap our paper stack in the pretty paper.  The cardboard stack was put in the center of the circle, and the fringes folded up to enclose our stack.

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We sharpened the ends of the dowel with a pencil sharpener (but not dangerously sharp), and poked one end into the stack of paper.  We opted to glue the assembly lightly into place (to the paper), so we could have consistent recordings of the sun's passage.

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At every hour, from 10 until 5, we recorded the sun's position on our paper.  Maddie found it easy and helpful to use a ruler to make straight, tidy lines.  We noticed that some shadows were long, and some short.  As we watched our clock being made, we also noted that a different place would have different records than ours!  Our sundial wouldn't be exactly correct, somewhere else.

When we had all our our lines marked, it was ready for decorating!

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Then it was all finished-- it is definitely the brightest, prettiest clock we have!

poster board paper (stick or wooden dowel)

cardboard

Glue

crayons, markers, or paints

Sundial

stars

summer fun

summer crafts

learning activity

at-home learning

rocks

books

We had fun learning about constellations in our driveway, then making mini-books to reinforce learning.  

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We took our sidewalk chalk out to the driveway, collected some rocks and we were ready to make some constellations. 

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We wrote the names of our constellations as well for some spelling and handwriting practice.

The rocks represent the stars. We counted each star in the constellations from our kids'favorite&nbsp;astronomy book and placed the stones on the driveway, then drew the chalk lines to connect them.

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We had fun with some pretend constellations, too. Here my daughter is using her Goldilicious book by Victoria Kann to make a unicorn constellation.

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This inspired us to make up some other constellations, like this Birthday Cake Constellation.

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I took pictures of all of our constellations for the next step of our project.

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Back indoors, we printed the constellation photos to make a little book.  We added written information about each one.

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I added a few more drawn constellations for the kids to explore...

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...and another page for them to add a constellation of their own.
We've had these mini-books for quite some time now and the kids never tire of looking at them. It's a great way to reinforce their learning. For even more fun, take the books outside at night and see if you can find the constellations in the sky.

sidewalk chalk

rocks / stones

Paper

printer

Sidewalk Constellations

Explore the solar system as you make pom pom planets. 

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Gather pom poms that represent the planets (as pictured, left to right). Mercury: extra small grey, Venus: small yellow, Earth: small blue, Mars: small red, Jupiter: large orange, Saturn: large yellow, Uranus: medium green, Neptune: medium blue. 

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Wrap and/or glue a pipe cleaner around Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune to represent their rings. 

10 best solar system projects for kids

Screen-free fun!