Shadows

Dramatic Play

A spotlight. Pretty easy, so no pics! I just blocked off the window, kept the light on this side of the room off, and had a spotlight shining on the wall so they could make shadows. I added different things each day they could use to make shadows with, like toy animals or blocks towers. I also added flashlights later like we had previously used in large groups, so they could control the light to make and change shadows.

Art

Water color pencils. These are so fun, and sometimes hard to find! I actually searched for a few years until I finally found some. I showed them how to use them on paper at first, then about halfway through the day, showed them how we can color and erase on our skin. After that, everyone was painting faces by the mirror and had a super fun time! They have begged and begged to use them again.


Black sponge shadow painting, with ABC sponges


Shape collages


Painting

Small Manipulatives

Shadow matching folder games


Pattern blocks

Puzzles

Magnets

Large Group

Day 1, we went outside at the beginning of the day and traced our shadows. For large group, we went back out (2 hours later) to see how they had changed, and we discovered they moved and got shorter! We went inside to read and find out why. We read What Makes a Shadow? and learned that the sun's movement (or really, earth's movement) is what changed our shadows. We used a flashlight to watch shadows move and change shape.

Day 2, we read Bear Shadow and traced animals shadows outside.






Day 3, we placed our sun dials outside first thing, and marked where the shadows were. We checked on them at large group to see if the shadows had moved. They had! We then took our clipboards around the yard and traced different shadows we found.




 


Day 4, was cloudy!! So I was glad we had done all of our outside shadow activities already. We watched a video about shadows, and then made a shadow picture. The kids colored a cut out person to look like themselves and glued it onto a paper. Then I had a sun stamp, and a person stamp. They stamped on the sun, then had to figure out where their shadow would be, then they stamped their shadow with the person stamp in black paint.

Small Group

One group worked independently on puzzles, while my group built with blocks. I called them one at a time from my group so I could trace their silhouette.

The next week, one group decorated their sun dials, while the other group decorated their cut out silhouettes, and spelled their names on them with ABC stickers.