Summer Eclipse!

Today, the kids and I were treated to a once in a lifetime opportunity of being part of a solar eclipse moving its way across our country.  This has been all over the news for weeks now and highly anticipated, so I am so glad that we were able to experience it together instead of the kids being at school stuck in a classroom which would be the case in a few weeks.  Luckily, our next door neighbor (who is a former science teacher) was home with his two girls, so we were able to experience this phenomenon together and benefit from his scientific knowledge that helped to explain a few things.  Since we were only a few hours north of the path of totality, we were able to witness a partial, solar eclipse.  We had a fun time counting down to the exact moment when the eclipse occurred at 10:20 a.m. and enjoyed watching the shadows change shape and everything get darker.  Here are some pictures of our morning together!

Since it is extremely dangerous to look directly at the sun, everyone shared a few pairs of special, protective glasses that I had bought a few weeks ago.

The kids and their stuffed animals lined up on camping chairs waiting for the exact moment when the partial eclipse would occur.

Ella's 'Hello Kitty' stuffed animal sitting next to Poppy's and Daisy's 'My Little Ponies.'

Our neighbor, Kyle, brought out a piece of paper with a small hole in it and held it above another piece of paper.  Instead of a circle shadow appearing, only a crescent shadow was on the paper since the moon was already covering this much of the sun's surface at this point in the morning.  It was so cool to see!

The shadows of all the leaves on the driveway did the same thing as the shadow of the pin hole on the piece of paper.  They were all crescent shaped and looked really strange as the eclipse was about to happen.

The girls played around with the shadows of the shapes they created with their hands after Kyle showed them how different they would look on the driveway.

The crescent shapes that appeared on the sidewalk after the girls made circles with their fingers.

Lia pointing to a crescent shape shadow on a tree.

At the exact moment of the eclipse, the kids ran into our house to see how dark it was inside.  It was pretty crazy!  It looked like dusk in the evening instead of 10:20 in the morning!