Watching the solar eclipse on Friday

[toomuchicecream]

Anyone got any advice for me please? I want to take my KS1 class out to watch the partial eclipse (so then we can write about it...). I've done some googling and see that we can make simple pinhole projectors with 2 sheets of paper and a pin, but I'm not convinced that KS1 children will be able to hold the pieces of paper still for long enough and line them up well enough to see anything (maybe they could double up with KS2?). The alternative seems to be making something out of cardboard boxes.

Has anyone ever done anything like it before? Obviously stringent safety warnings will be issued and the children watched like hawks to make sure they aren't looking directly at the sun, but is there anything else I've missed?

You can get eclipse specs but they seem to have gotten v dear. If anyone sees any cheap ones I'd be keen to know where. I

Folded white card?

Ah - that could work....

How does the folded white card work? I've only seen the pinholes and the expensive glasses online?

I was thinking of folded card as an alternative to having 2 pieces of card. But having done a bit more reading (ie the AIBU thread) we wouldn't be able to get the 2 pieces far enough apart if folded so that won't work.

But I now know that we can all use colanders - I like the image of children walking to school with a colander each. And that we'll need to persuade A LOT of parents to hang around after drop off to help make sure the children don't look directly at the sun. I really, really want to do it, but can see it's going to take some careful thinking through

A couple of cheap black buckets filled with water would also work. You can watch the reflection. You'll have to be really stringent on H&S though.

We're really lucky as our PTA ordered eclipse glasses for every child in the school.

How would buckets of water work?

I've now realised the Head is out that day so as Deputy I'll be in charge - that's much scarier, being on top of the H&S...

If you put one piece of paper on the ground then they could sit on the ground (possibly with back or side to the sun), and would only need to manipulate one piece of paper. They would need to be far enough apart and positioned so they didn't put shadows onto the paper.

You could practice one day this week to see where to do it best?

Dire warnings - anyone seen looking at the sun will be sent straight in to tidy the book corner.

Also, you have a good 15 minute slot where it is pretty well covered. With the support of a good TA, could you do it in shifts rather than try to do the whole class simultaneously? That would mean fewer children to try to help at any one time? I was thinking they might think 1 minute was quite long enough?

There's probably someone live streaming it too. Could you perhaps watch the sun on that, but get the children to make general observations from outside. Last time I remember noticing the birds stopping singing, and daisies shutting their petals.

Does anyone know what time it will be?

There'll probably be heavy cloud cover!! If you have trees the sunlight filtering through the leaves forms images on the ground of the eclipse.

This link shows the timing in London - you can change the city

www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/uk/london