There was an annular solar eclipse on Sunday. I happened to be in WalMart buying last-minute stuff for our campout when they announced that their vision center just got a shipment in of eclipser viewing glasses. I snagged five. I explained the concept of an eclipse using a large melon to represent the sun and a small apple to represent the moon. I showed the kids how if you put the apple in the right spot it looked like the melon disappeared, even though it's still there. They were excited to see the moon cover up the sun. I explained how the glasses worked and told them that the without the glasses the radiation from the sun was still bright enough to damage their eyes.
They loved watching the eclipse. We had a great view from our deck. It was weird to see how the light changed as more of the sun became blocked by the moon. The shadows were so strange. We made projections of the eclipse by poking a small hole in a piece of paper, and even got it to work with our hands.
I hope our kids will at least have some memory of this event. It was very cool to witness.
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