Creating a Mosaic Sundial
This post may contain affiliate links, view our disclosure policy for details.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a lot of sunshine right now why not take the extra time over the holidays to teach your children about how people could tell time BEFORE clocks were created! It’s something we take for granted SO easily but is such an important concept –
SUNDIALS
It’s SO simple to create your own. Take a square of heavy cardboard, and glue on top and pattern or design that you wish using small mosaic tiles. You can buy them online, or at any craft store. There are shiny ones, clear ones, metallic ones, stone ones, glittery ones, etc. We had stone ones. Once you’ve glued your mosaic tiles down just like you want them then take a small amount of grout mixture and spread it onto the tiles making sure that grout gets down in between each tile. Then just wipe off the top of the tiles and wait for it to dry!
Looks great doesn’t it! Then simple glue a small dowel rod directly in the middle of your mosaic! We haven’t added numbers to ours but you can still use this as a great object lesson. A sundial has to be aligned with the axis of the Earth’s rotation, typically pointing true celestial north (not magnetic north). The earliest types of sundials known to man, obelisks, have been around since 3500 BC.
