Week 4: Making and Changing Shadows

Children watch the video Shifting Shadows and gather ideas for their own outdoor shadow explorations.

Children listen to and discuss the book Moonbear’s Shadow, by Frank Asch, and act out scenes from the story.

Children explore how a shadow is made and predict where the shadow will fall when the light is moved.

Children act out story scenes, create shadows, and describe shadow positions using illustrations from the book Moonbear’s Shadow, by Frank Asch.

Children explore how to make the shadow of an object inside the shadow theater bigger, smaller, and clear enough to identify by moving a flashlight closer and farther away.

Children act out story scenes, create shadows, and describe shadow positions using illustrations from the book Moonbear’s Shadow, by Frank Asch.

Children look at and discuss Cool Shadows photos the class has taken of interesting shadows.

Children watch the video Shifting Shadows and gather ideas for their own outdoor shadow explorations.

Children identify and count the shapes on a shadow shape card and then build a matching shadow using cutouts of 2D shapes.

Children explore shadows in a dark, digital cave. They make big and small shadows to match an outline that is on the cave wall.

Children trace and measure shadows at different times of the day and discover how the location and length of the shadows change. They use the Cool Shadow tool to document their experiment.

Children revisit combined shadows, shadows growing larger as objects are moved closer to the light, and shadows changing shape as objects are rotated.

Children explore how a shadow is made and predict where the shadow will fall when the light is moved.