What age group is "Tawan and the Traveling Shadow" suitable for?

Suitable for children aged 5-8. Reading time is about 3-5 minutes.

Tawan and the Traveling Shadow

Tawan, a Thai boy in a brick-red shirt, compares a basket with the lime tree's shifted shadow in the Saturday morning yard.

On Saturday morning, Tawan set a basket beside the lime tree. When he returned later, the shadow that had touched the basket had moved away. “Who moved the shadow?” he wondered.

Tawan and Aunt Orn use chalk and pebbles to mark the tip of a stick's shadow in the sunny late-morning yard.

Aunt Orn helped Tawan stand a piece of chalk upright in the yard. Every hour, he traced the shadow's tip and placed a pebble there. The shadow grew shorter, then pointed the other way.

Tawan studies the short noon shadow beneath a stick and several chalk marks while the sun stands high above the house.

At noon, the shadow was shortest. Tawan tried to push his chalk line back, but the shadow would not follow. Looking up, he understood that the sun's path across the sky made the shadow seem to travel.

Tawan and Aunt Orn arrange a clay-pot sundial with picture symbols for lunch and watering in the afternoon garden.

Tawan and Aunt Orn made a simple sundial from a clay pot and a stick. Instead of words, he used a lunch picture and a watering-can picture to remember which shadow meant each activity.

Tawan smiles beside a sundial with no clear shadow on a cloudy morning and points out a clock beneath the eaves to Aunt Orn.

The next day, clouds hid the sun and the sundial fell quiet, so Tawan checked a clock instead. He smiled. A sundial worked well when sunlight came, and a good answer included what it could not do.