Any sunny day you can practice, looking under trees for spots of sunlight. Shine them onto a piece of paper, or look at the sidewalk. Some of the spots are perfect circles, little pictures of the sun! They are a small or large, a fraction of an inch to a few inches, depending on how how high the natural pinholes are that they are focusing through! You may see hundreds of spots, and the thinner they get the easier to see. 

When the moon begins to cover the sun, you’ll see a bite out of each sun circle on the ground. The bites will slowly get bigger— the crescents thinner—then thicker again. If you are in the eclipse shadow, and I hope you are, looking at crescents on the ground is something fun to do before and after totality. You’ll be amazed. Also, I hope we’ll see planets and stars. The brightest is the planet Venus. Maybe we’ll see stars appearing near the sun, the constellation Pisces, the Fishes. If your birthday is about now, Fishes is your “sign.” 

Listen for animal noises to quiet down and for it to get cool. Don’t look directly at the sun until the moon covers it. You’ll know when that is! It will suddenly get dark! What a sight! When the sun glints around the moon, the “diamonds ring,” look away.