Total Eclipse - Hands On Homeschool Adventures

Jeremiah 31:35 "Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is His name:"

When I watched a video about the amazing things that happen during a solar eclipse. Chicago was supposed to experience a 90% eclipse, but about 5 hours south, they would experience the solar eclipse in totality. Wayne decided to take the day off so that we could travel to see the eclipse. I have to find creative ways to explain and show science to the boys, since they didn't learn much science in China. We discovered this when we went to the planetarium this summer. They had no clue what planets were or about the universe. Seeing the eclipse would make learning science fun and something that they could understand.

We left at 4am on Sunday morning to beat the crowd that we heard would flock south to see the eclipse. The drive took us under six hours and the kids did great traveling. It was the first road trip for Shan Chen and DJ's first road trip with us. He traveled with his host family last summer to Atlanta to the airport and to go camping. They did so great!

The kids had a blast hanging out in the country for 24 hours. We decided to modify our eclipse glasses since we had so many little ones and the glasses were big. We didn't want to chance anyone hurting their eyes.

Once the eclipse started, it was great to see the kids enjoying God's creation and playing great together. It was fascinating to see all the events that happened surrounding the eclipse. As the total eclipse got closer, the colors and shadows changed around us. The temperature dropped and the shadows in the trees looked like small crescents. We loved seeing the diamond ring and all the other changes to the sun as we progressed closer to the eclipse. Once the total eclipse occurred, it was one of the most amazing things I have seen. After the totality ended, we hopped in the car to try to beat the crowd leaving southern Illinois. Everyone else must have had the same idea because once we reached the freeway, it was a parking lot. It took us under 6 hours to get there and over 8 hours to get home. But everyone said it was worth all the hours driving. Here are the pictures I captured. They are not the best and it didn't capture all the amazing colors, but enjoy.