Make a Lego Sundial

August 20, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Kids are usually impressed by the idea that we can tell time using the sun, and making a sundial is a great summer activity that doesn’t have to involve being outside for too long (though it helps if you can go out and check it every hour for a few hours to see the difference as time goes on).

There are some really simple ways to make sundials, such as with a paper plate and a straw (Ontario Science Centre), using a printable clock face (Paging Supermom) or using a cardboard tube (Learn Play Imagine). I like that this one adds the engineering aspect of building the sundial out of Legos.

If you have multiple kids each one can make their own sundial and compare the lengths of the shadows they make at different times of day. They could also place them in different spots where there is more or less sun to illustrate that your sundial needs to be in the sun for you to be able to read it.

You can get all the details on how to build and mark the time on your Lego sundial from MomBrite. And if you want to turn it into a full-on science lesson, you can explain why a sundial works with a little help from Britannica Kids:

The surface of a sundial has markings for each hour of daylight. As the Sun moves across the sky, another part of the sundial casts a shadow on these markings. The position of the shadow shows what time it is.

The post also notes that ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Muslims all used sundials to tell time. And a fun fact for the word nerds: the part of the sun dials that sticks up is called a gnomon. I didn’t know that!

[Photo: MomBrite]

Review: The Lego Christmas Ornaments Book

How to Build a Lego Night Light

Lego Building Ideas and Challenges for Summer

Make a Pumpkin out of Legos

Make a Human Sundial with Shadows

Learn about Time for Daylight Saving Time

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Gross Motor Math Ideas

With little kids especially, linking learning to physical activity really does help them learn. Movement can help kids focus, and it just keeps them from sitting still all day, which isn’t good for anyone.

The good news is lots of different learning activities can be adopted to get kids moving while they learn, so let’s look at some math and number activities that use gross motor skills.

Probably the most obvious thing would be hopscotch, which helps kids count while they hop. You can also mix up the numbers, do skip counting with the numbers, give kids a simple math problem and have them hop to the correct answer, and on and on.

This number hop game from Gift of Curiosity is a more chaotic version, with number flash cards on the floor that kids can hop, skip or jump to as you call them out (this one is more for individual number identification than counting). It’s a great indoor option if it’s too hot, cold or rainy out to do traditional hopscotch, too.

This painter’s tape number line idea from Days with Grey doesn’t involve quite as much movement, but kids can move around while they place things on the number line and work on learning about one to one correspondence. In the blog post they use shoes, but you can count anything you’ve got handy. (Be warned when I visited this website had an ad that continually took up the whole page, but you can get the idea pretty quickly.)

One of the important tasks of learning numbers is learning a parent’s phone number just in case it’s ever needed, or how to dial 911 in case on an emergency. Teaching Mama has a great way to practice telephone numbers and get some movement in with a giant telephone keypad made out of paper plates. You can also use this for counting practice, but it’s a great idea for learning phone numbers, too.

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