Because I am not going to be at school on the actual date of the winter solstice this year (December 21st), and because I am going to Texas for my niece's wedding tomorrow, today was the day I got to school early, marked out my circle, and waited for the sun to rise.
Today is almost the shortest day of the year, which would be 9 hours and 19 minutes long in Terre Hill/East Earl. Once school began, I took both of my history classes outside to see the circle and the mark on the circle where the sun rose.
This afternoon, I made it back to school after taking my son to get his drivers permit, and he helped mark the sunset on the same circle. It was a balmy 18 degrees.
Now we've got the location of the sunrise and sunset on (almost) the shortest day of the year mapped out visibly on a circle, and on June 21st, the date of the summer solstice, I'm going to mark the same for the longest day of the year. We got interested in this when we studied how the Mayans did this.
