Learning to tell time {sundial style}!

What time is it really!?!

Grow Old Along With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be ~ Love it!

  Have you ever thought about teaching your children to tell time...with the sun?  I'm medieval like that, so I am!  Because, you just never know when your cell phone battery will die while you're outside playing bad-mitten.  But, if you're really lucky like my kids, you have a mom that got a used sundial for $10 bucks at an estate sale to put in the flowerbed and BAM - Your day is saved!  (Unless it's cloudy, haha!).

 But first I had to refresh our noggins this morning bringing our new treasure home from the sale.  We reviewed that the sun's rotation causes the sun to appear to move from east to west.  So we pointed the style towards the north.  Our sundial has 2 basic parts.  A pointer called a style {or gnomom}, which casts a shadow.  And a numbered dial on which the shadow falls to show the hour.  So telling them when it's time to come in from playing outside, just got a whole lot more fun, {and educational}!

Here is a great little tutorial I found on YouTube from our 'motherland' Penn State explaining the use of the sundial.  "What Time Is It?"  

  If you're looking for literature about Sundials: Their Theory and Construction by Albert E. Waugh.

*This post contains my affiliate link.  I hope you enjoyed this Treat by Tanya!  Do you have experience or fun stories with telling time by the sun?