Create a DIY sundial with a paper plate (the “Chinet” style works best), straw or pencil, tape, glue and decorations.

If you will be with your children / students for a full day AND it’s a sunny day, here’s the process: Poke a hole in the center of the plate. Tape a pencil or straw or dowel upright in the hole. Take the plate outside and set it in a sunny place. Draw an arrow to the side of the plate, mark it as south, and set the plate so that arrow is pointing south.

Every hour, on the hour (9:00, 10:00, etc.), check the shadow, mark a line where the shadow falls, and write the time. Repeat on the hour all day long till your sundial is complete. The next day, check it again to show that it’s still working. You can pick up and move the sundial to other places, as long as every time you set it down, you always point your arrow to the south.

If you want to do the project quickly, and it might not be a bright sunny day when you want to do this activity, you can also prepare a template in advance.

Just follow those same directions to make the template, ideally on a slightly smaller plate.

Then at class, put the pencil in the center of the child’s plate, slide on the template, then the child marks off the times. Then remove the template and they decorate their sundials. You can use a flashlight to illustrate how as the sun moves through the sky, the shadow shifts to indicate the time of day.

This template was created in Seattle, latitude 47 degrees North, near the equinox, so will be most accurate there.

We have lots more hands-on science activities about Light and Shadow. Or you may also be interested in our DIY Weather Station. Here are some sample sundials, made by an 8 year old, 6 year old, 5 year olds, and 3 year old who decided to do his own thing with the available materials. Note: to glue gems on, use Tacky Glue (affiliate link) – it works much better than school glue!