A Moment In Time

Still traveling in the Middle Ages, we talked about what life was like without so many of our modern devices.  Since we are also starting our Solar System unit during this time - starting with the Sun - I introduced the kids to the concept of the hour glass as a method of measuring time.  Later we will be making a Sun Dial to continue their understanding of time.

I found a great craft to make your own hour glass and the boys had fun watching their sand and measuring our "hour glass".  It turns out, ours is actually around a  3 minute timer!

This is an easy craft that anyone could do with just a couple simple items you probably have around the house.

Materials:

2 bottles of similar size, one must have a squeeze top to slow the sand pouring in/out.
Tape
Sand

We used two salad dressing bottles that I cleaned out and scrubbed the labels off.  Hint: Use an SOS pad to scrub the sticky label residue off.  So much faster than just a sponge.

Pour the sand into one of the bottles.  Tape the other upside down to it and enjoy!

It took all of 5 minutes to create (besides cleaning the bottles!  That was the difficult part) and was lots of fun for the kids as they "timed" their activities the rest of the day.