Me and my Shadow

We all had a new friend in our class today... our shadows!  We began the day watching a short clip on the Earth and Sun and their relationship. We learned that even though it looks like the sun is moving across the sky it is really the Earth spinning on its axis.  We talked about directions and learned that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West because the Earth spins in a westward direction.  We monitored the sun's trip across the sky by measuring our shadows throughout the day.  At 9:00 a.m. our shadows were very long and big.  At that time our partners drew our shadows with chalk.  We put our initials on them and checked them at 10:40 on the way to lunch. They had moved!  It was very exciting.  We checked them again at 1:30 after library and they had moved again and shrunk.  They looked like baby shadows!  This was a silly discovery!  We also looked at where the sun was at that time.  It was almost directly over head instead of on the other side of the sky where we saw it this morning.  As an extra homework assignment I asked the children to go outside after dinner and see where it is then.  We will talk about it tomorrow morning.