Science Experiment #ElmersScienceReady

We are officially starting our homeschooling again on Monday, but we have still been homeschooling 2-3 days over the summer. We pretty much school year round. This week we have been studying the ancient Egyptians. According to historians, Egyptians started using sundials around 3500 B.C. By 1500 B.C. there were portable sundials. Sundials were used to tell time.

Budget Saving Mom was asked to try out a few Elmer’s products, and we were happy to try them out because this fit right in with our science experiment! I found an experiment where we could make a sundial on this site.

First we went shopping at Walmart.  We needed to buy an Elmer’s Tri-Fold display board, and some Elmer’s X-TREME school glue stick. Then, we went to a restaurant and got a large cup for the sundial.

I wanted to make a display board for our classroom, since we will be studying astronomy and ancient peoples all year. So, this board will be applicable for the year.

First, we made the sundial. This was so incredibly easy!

First, I had the kids go collect rocks from the yard.

We placed the rocks in the bottom of our large cup.

I made a hole a couple of inches down on the side of the cup for the straw to stick out of. So, the straw went through the lid, bent and then came out the side.

I colored the top of the straw so that there would be more of a shadow.

We taped the straw onto the cup.

Then, I found a free app on my phone, and using that compass we placed our sundial on the ground with lots of sun and with the straw pointing north.

Every hour we all walked out to the garden. I drew a mark where the shadow was, and labeled the time. We did this from 10 am until 4 pm.

The next day, we went out and checked to see if we could tell the correct time using our sundial. AND, we could!! You just have to look where the shadow falls, and you are able to tell the time. Of course, if it was a cloudy day, you would not be able to tell what time it is!

I thought that it was pretty amazing that we could use a disposable cup and a straw to be able to tell the time!

So, once we did our science experiment, we all had tons of fun making a science experiment display board. This really was fun! We do a science experiment almost daily, so I can’t do display boards for all of them, but it is fun when we do.

We always use the scientific method when we do science experiments even with the little kids. It is that throw back to when I was a science teacher! But, even my two year old can understand parts of it.

The kids came up with the title of the experiment. We ruled out ancient Egyptian sundial because we figured they did not have styrofoam cups thousands of years ago!

Then, they listed the materials. Lyn remembered all of them!

I also had her tell me what her hypothesis was, describe the procedure, and talk about the results and conclusions.

Describing the procedure was hilarious! She said, “First, you have to go out to breakfast and get a cup!” It is funny what kids emphasize. We rarely go out to breakfast, so she was quite excited about it! My eldest daughter was able to come up with a hypothesis, but my four year old struggled with this. We talked about it until she understood sundials a little better, and she was eventually able to say what she thought would happen.

Then, we started getting ready to put things onto our Elmer’s Tri-Fold display board! Everyone was so excited about this part!!

I had Boo and Lyn color pictures of ancient sundials.

We cut out a yellow sun from the cover of a notebook.

Then, we got to glue using Elmer’s X-TREME school glue stick! First we glued our printed out paper onto construction paper.

Then, we glued the matted papers onto the board after we laid them out.

We were really impressed that we were able to glue our sundial onto the board. I did not think that a glue stick would be able to hole it on, but Elmer’s X-TREME school glue stick was.

Here is a picture of our final project!

Below is a video of our little Lyn telling you in a four year old’s words about the experiment!

You can check out pictures of our shopping trip as well as of our science experiment here. I actually spent quite a bit of time on this. I just started using thismoment.com, and it was SO much fun, so I hope that you will check it out!

This project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for #ElmersScienceReady #collectivebias