Garden Time
The elementary students have been studying direction. The classroom has North, South, East and West taped to the classroom walls, and globes and flashlights have been employed to explain that we spin on an axis, and we are also spinning around the sun. We forget that we don't know until we are told that the world is round and when the sun comes "up" it is actually reaching our side of the sphere.
During garden time we made sundials and brought them outside, pointing them north after learning to use a compass. Students not only saw how the movement of the sun affects plants, but also that sunlight was something they could measure. Having measured the path of the sun with something of their own creation allowed the children to know planetary movement instead of having learned the information but maybe not fully retaining it. This opened up their minds to questions they may not have asked, and gave a steady framework for reasoning themselves through related questions they will have in the future.
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