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• a shadow play activity
• hands-on science activities including shadows from an overhead projector, a sundial craft, a model to understand how the sun’s positon affects shadows, and more
• art projects – shadow puppets, paint shadows, silhouettes and sun prints
• circle time activities and song
• a free kids’ book you can download and print
• other recommended books and videos
• an arts extension activity – build a shadow puppet theatre and write a play

Shadow Play

You could simply shine a bright light on a wall or a white board, and let your children dance between the light and the wall. But, it’s even cooler if you can see BOTH sides of the surface the shadow is cast on. My co-teacher Cymbric built a fabulous screen using a white sheet supported by a PVC frame. It was held up by two very heavy patio umbrella stands so even with a fair amount of rough-housing, it never came close to tipping over. Alternatively, you could hang a white shower curtain or sheet in a doorway, either with a tension rod, or just taping it above the door frame.

The light: Behind the screen, we use an LED Work Light, which is very bright, but cool to the touch. (don’t use an incandescent or halogen shop light as they can get very hot!!) We happen to have an interior room with no windows, so it’s easy to get the room dark enough to get good shadow effects – it might be harder in a window-filled room.

You could also use colored lights. (Read about our multi-colored light experiment.)

The “invitations to play”:

Hand Shadows: We put up posters showing diagrams of hand positions for shadow puppets to inspire them to play with hand shadows. I made a poster showing how to do the 7 shadow puppets that appear in the book Shadow Night which we read in closing circle. (see below)

Shadow Puppets: We offer a few shadow puppets. They also make their own shadow puppets to test. (See below.)

What shadow does it make: Kids are encouraged to bring in other items from the classroom to see what shadows they would cast. I especially love the combinations. Photo 1 shows where they’d placed rainbow colored translucent “Duplos” in front of the light to cast rainbow light, then put a unicorn puppet close to the screen. In photo 2, a child is standing in front of the shop light, which casts his shadow, and holding a green flashlight in one hand, shining on a puppet to make its shadow. Photo 3 is a Duplo sculpture made by a dad, and a monkey puppet.
       

Shadow Dancing: Or kids can just do crazy dances behind the screen! (Often kids on the “audience” side of the screen mimic the motions of the child behind the screen.)

Flashlight Play

Another fun option for free play is to offer lots of flashlights, mirrors and toys, so kids could freely play with reflecting light, and with playing with how they can change the size and shape of a toy’s shadow depending on how close or far away they hold the flashlight, and what angle they hold the flashlight at related to the toy. (This is a direct echo of some experiments from our book.)

Hanging shadows. You could hang a clothesline across a room and hang a lot of items on it. Kids can walk up and down the line, shining the flashlight at all angles, finding the shadow in the room.

Light and Shadow Science Exploration

Projector Shadows

We have an old overhead projector, so set it out with some opaque items (blocks, etc.), some translucent, and some transparent, including some glass tile samples that make really cool shadows. Here’s a picture of the items on the projector surface and then their image on the wall. We use this again in Rainbows week with colorful translucent items.

 Model of Sun and Earth

I created a model which illustrates how where you are on the planet in relation to the sun affects your shadow and whether it is day or night. Click here to learn more.

Challenge of the Week – Sundial

Create a sundial with a paper plate, straw or pencil, tape, glue and glass globules. Click here for the DIY sundial tutorial.

Exploring Light Refraction

Put out glass jars and containers, some filled with water, some not. Have posters with different color stripes, and an arrow. Have kids look through an empty jar at the poster. Then pour water into the jar – the image flips.  Have them experiment with the different size jars, with different size drawings and moving the image closer or further away. http://gosciencegirls.com/refraction-light-glass-water-play-steam-kids/ 

Building Activities

Translucent Blocks

We have translucent “Duplos” The kids build towers with them, then shine a flashlight to see the colorful shadows. The key to the success of this activity is to just leave the flashlight on, shining through whatever tower is currently there… as kids look over and notice that colorful shadow, it intrigues them enough to come and explore. If the flashlight isn’t on, they are more likely to pass the table by as a familiar “it’s just Duplos” activity.

My favorite moment this year was when a kid built a rainbow, and we put it on the projector. Check this out!

I wonder if Magna tiles would work well in a similar activity….

You could also build with opaque Legos or Duplos, set up a light so the shadow falls on paper, and trace the shadow as shown on Little Bins.

Build to Match

I love this idea from Hands On As We Grow where you build a structure from blocks, then trace its shadow, then take it apart, and challenge your child to re-create the structure to match the shadow.

Light Table and Water Table

Some years, we have the light table out with a variety of translucent items for free exploration and, separately, the water table filled with colorful water beads floating in water, and a couple flashlights to shine on them, to shine up through the bottom of the table. Other years, we put the light table under the water table to shine up through there. and put all the translucent items in the water.

Art Projects

Shadow Puppets

For preschoolers, we put out cookie cutters, pencils, cardstock, scissors, tape and popsicle sticks. They trace the cookie cutter onto the cardstock, cut it out, and tape it to a popsicle stick.

For older kids, they can free draw their own designs, but we’ve learned it’s important to have some good examples of what they’re trying to make – emphasize that it’s the outline they are focusing on and that although they’re welcome to decorate the puppet, the decorations they draw on won’t show up in the shadow. (Like in the dragon picture shown below.) For young children, we offer hole punches in various shapes (hearts, stars) so they can make cut-outs. For older kids (with supervision!!), you could offer Xacto knives to make cut-outs.

Paint Shadows

(Source for idea: http://tippytoecrafts.blogspot.com/2012/02/negative-art.html, who got it from https://www.dillydaliart.com/2011/10/negative-art-and-cotton-swab-bones.html)

Basic idea: A child lays their hand on a piece of paper, with fingers spread wide, and you spray paint on to it. When they lift their hand off, a shadow is left behind. (Tell them this is like sunshine shining on their hand – the light rays spread outward and continue till they run into something that blocks them, and that makes a shadow.)

We’ve found it’s a little more challenging than it sounds. You need to dilute the paint with water enough that it sprays easily and doesn’t clog the sprayer, but not so much that it runs. We put the paper on an easel and have an adult spray the paint (you need to be able to stand back a little to get the paint so spray out wide enough and the kids tended to make a big mess at that distance.) We also found, surprisingly, that lots of the kids didn’t like the idea of having their hand spray painted. So we also made a cut-out cardboard hand that they could spray.

You could also try this experiment with  Body Spray paint. It’s fun because you can tell the kids to imagine sun shine is shining on their hand, and then when you’re done, their hand it still all sparkly. (Note, this stuff is hard to wash off, so their hands (and yours) may be sparkly for a few days!)

One year, we put brown paper on a table and sprayed several kids’ hands to make a group art project that was reminiscent of several ancient cave paintings of paint shadow hands, including some from Indonesia believed to be 40,000 years old.

Another experiment I have meant to try: could we use calligraphy “magic paper“, and just spray on water to get the shadow, then let it dry?

Shine a Flashlight Craft 1

We found this idea at Gilbert House Children’s Museum in Salem, Oregon. To prep: cut the beam shape out of black paper. Fasten the black paper to the yellow paper with a brad paper fastener. Then add the flashlight to the black paper. Children pivot the black paper to “shine the flashlight” somewhere on the yellow paper, and add a sticker or a drawing to show what the flashlight revealed. Turn the beam again and add more pictures.

Shine a Flashlight 2

Here is an alternate method from https://giphy.com/gifs/jOmTdhe0FhSe8EXMI5. First draw pictures on a ziplock bag. Then, put black paper inside the bag. Make a paper flashlight with a white beam. slip it between the black paper and the drawings on the bag and move it around to illuminate the drawings.

Sculpture Shadows or Toy Shadows

We found an idea where kids sculpt a shape or cut a shape from aluminum foil, then tape it to a cardstock square. Then they place it in front of a bright lamp and trace the shadow then colored in the shadow. (Source of idea: http://doodles-and-noodles.blogspot.com/2012/10/figurative-sculpture.html)

This activity might work for older kids. We found that 3 – 5 year olds had a hard time figuring out how to make a three dimensional sculpture. We decided to just have them trace toys.

Mural of kids’ shadows

You could tape a big piece of paper on the wall. Then shine a big light or projector at it. Have kids stand by the wall so their shadows fall on the paper. Trace their shadows.

Silhouettes

Put paper on wall. Have the child sit sideways in front of the table. Shine a bright light on them and trace their silhouette. I recently had a conversation with someone about how this was a “thing” in the 60’s or 70’s, so all of us who were kids back then remember having a silhouette of ourselves.

Projection Tubes

I love this easy idea from Moon Child Adventures. Cover one end of a TP tube with saran wrap. Rubber band it. Put a foam sticker on. Now shine a light through it at the wall. It projects the image.

Sunprints

You can purchase special photo-sensitive paper (called sun prints, or  Sun Art Paper.) You set it outside in the sunshine, with various items on it for a period of 15 minutes to a few hours (depending on the product and how bright the sun is), then you remove the items. and you’ve captured the image / shadow permanently. (See example here.)  They’re really VERY cool – I love them. BUT… in the Pacific Northwest, I find that they don’t tend to work most of the year – our winter sunlight just isn’t intense enough. I have gotten them to work on very sunny summer days.

Outdoor Play

If you’re lucky enough to have a sunny day, you can have the children explore their own shadows, notice the shadows of objects, and use sidewalk chalk to trace shadows. You can encourage them to try different poses to see how they look. Try singing Head Shoulders Knees and Toes to see what shadow shapes you make.

Songs

We’re still looking for a great sing-along about light or shadows for circle. I found a couple options, both to the tune of Frere Jacques  (Source 1; Source 2), and I wrote my version. Have the kids mimic the shadow shapes as you sing about them..

I see shadows,  I see shadows,
On the wall,  In the hall.
Some are short and scary,
Some are round and hairy,
Some are small, Some are tall.

Or there’s another song is to the Itsy Bitsy Spider tune:

My Itsy Bitsy Shadow Follows Me Around.
The sun is up high so my shadow’s on the ground.
When it’s gray and cloudy, my shadow goes away.
I know that I will see in on the next sunny day.

There’s also Hi Shadow and Bindi’s Shadow Song and My Shadow.

Books

I wrote a kids’ non-fiction book which covers all the key ideas about light and shadow. It includes lots of easy experiments to try. You can read it (or print a copy) here:

With our class structure, we begin with “discovery time”, where the kids have an opportunity to explore all the activities hands-on. This raises their curiosity about what’s happening. Then we have opening circle, where we read pages 1 – 10 and 19 – 20 of the book, which explains the phenomena they’d observed. We do the demos included in the book during circle, and then encourage them to try out all those same experiments during our “tinkering time” where they return to exploring all the activities. In closing circle, we read pages 11 – 18 about about daytime and night-time shadows, and pages 21 – 22 which talk about shadow puppet theatre and hand shadows – this prepares us for reading Shadow Night.

Stories about Shadows

Shadow Night by Chorao. A boy sees shadows on his wall and is afraid that they are monsters. He yells for his parents, who come to reassure him, and end up showing him how to make shadow puppets with their hands, and then they tell a story with shadow puppets. The great part is that the book is also a tutorial in how to make those hand shadows yourself!! So, one teacher read the book where the kids could see it, and the other made the shadows on the screen for everyone to see. Ages 3 – 7. Although it’s long for a read-aloud, it works, when used in conjunction with the shadow screen. (Note: one year we didn’t have the book, because we failed to pick it up at the library the day before. So I scribbled out a similar Shadow Story that we could use.)

• Moonbear’s Shadow by Asch. When Bear is fishing, his shadow scares away the fish. So, he tries to run away from his shadow and tries to trap his shadow, but with no success. At noontime his shadow disappears so he takes a nap, but in the late afternoon, it’s back! But when he goes fishing, his shadow no longer falls over the water. So, he catches a fish – and so does his shadow! A cute story for ages 3 – 5 that also discusses how shadows change as the sun moves through the daytime sky.
• The Dark, Dark Night by Butler and Chapman. Frog is headed home to his pond after dark and borrows a lantern. When he gets to the pond, he sees a huge black Pond Monster! (The kids in our class were delighted that they all knew this was Frog’s shadow, even though Frog didn’t know that.) He goes and gets friend after friend. They see bigger and scarier Pond Monsters and get more and more worked up. Then at the end, they realize that it’s just their shadows and laugh and laugh. A nice story about shadows and also about how sometimes a misunderstanding can lead to fear and then when we learn more it becomes less scary. Fun for ages 3 – 6.
• Lights Out by Medearis and Tadgell. Part of the Just for You series featuring African American families. Nice illustrations, good rhythm and rhyme to the text. “‘Good night, sleep tight!’ Daddy tucks me in. Out go the lights. Now the fun begins!” Sweet story of a daddy tucking a child in to bed, then her sneaking out to look at the city lights and make hand shadow puppets and then sneak back into bed. Nice preschool read-aloud or easy read for a new reader.
• Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow by Tompert and Munsinger. Age 5 – 7 – a much longer book than I would read at story-time, but might work well one on one at home or as a naptime read at a preschool. Fun, silly story about a rabbit who tries lots of ways to escape his shadow – leaping away, sweeping it away, pulling it off, cutting it off….
• Flashlight by Boyd. This is a really lovely wordless book, which shows a child going for a walk in the dark and spotting lots of nocturnal animals in the beam of his flashlight. This is a good companion to our “shine a flashlight” themed crafts. (This video is a nice model of how to share a wordless book with children.)

Non-Fiction Books on Light and Shadow

• I See a Shadow by Breen. (Preview video by the author.) Nice engaging overview – suitable for 3 – 5 year olds.
• What Makes a Shadow by Bulla, illus by Otani. (Video of read-aloud.) This is an engaging, clear overview of the science of shadows for kids age 4 – 6. Highly recommended. It’s a little long to read straight through for a preschool level, but could be broken up into two group times.
• Oscar and the Moth: A Book About Light and Dark by Waring. This book is a conversation between a cat and a moth that explains how the earth rotates and that causes day and night, explains that light can come from the sun, the stars, electric light, and animals that emit light. It also explains that shadows happen when something blocks the light. A nice overview of lots of scientific ideas, told in a way that not only makes sense to preschool age children, but is engaging as well.
• Follow It!: Learn About Shadows by Hall. Non-fiction, covers all the basic ideas about shadows. Does a great job of gathering the key ideas about shadows, but the writing isn’t very engaging. Good resource for ages 4 – 6.
• Guess Whose Shadow? by Swinburne. Pros – the book includes a basic introduction to the idea of shadows, with photos to illustrate the text, then it has a guessing game, where you see the shadow on one page and it asks you to guess whose shadow it is, then reveals the answer on the next page. The kids in our class (age 3 – 7) were definitely engaged in the guessing game during circle. Cons: the photos are a little dated, and not that great, and there’s just a grammatical incorrectness to showing a picture of a shadow of a swing-set and saying “guess whose shadow.” It’s almost tempting to write / photograph our own version of this guessing game.
• Shadows and Reflections by Hoban. Like all Tana Hoban books, this is a wordless collection of photographs on a theme. Like all Tana Hoban books, I think this one is fine, and I get it to put on the bookshelf for kids to look at it, but I can’t say I love it.
• What Makes a Shadow? by Bulla and Otani. A really nice non-fiction overview of everything having to do with shadows. Great for 5 – 7 year olds, or to read one-on-one to a younger child, but too long for a group time with preschoolers.
• Day Light, Night Light: Where Light Comes From by Branley and Schuett. Branley worked at the Hayden planetarium and has written many kids’ science books. Like his other books, this is a really good summary of the scientific facts, for kids 5 – 8. We don’t read his books in class because they’re too long and over the heads of half our kids, but they’re quite good.
• More ideas for demos and activities here: https://stardate.org/teaching-tool/shadow-play

Videos

• There’s some great Sid the Science Kid episodes on Light and Shadow. Find it at https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/sid-the-science-kid/t/light-and-shadow/
• Peep and the BWW also has a shadow episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty0C8mH4Jy8
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kVRQTfzS-I from Sparkle School
• This video shows simple hand puppet shadows to make: https://vimeo.com/59196587. (I bet if you search on YouTube you’ll find lots more examples.)   There are multiple free apps you can download that show you lots of different hand puppet shadows to make… just go to your app store and search for hand shadow puppets. If you want to see a couple of amazing professional hand puppeteer shows, check out youtube.com/watch?v=CPFto6ghMV4
• Watch Grover from Sesame Street sing about his Furry Little Shadow.
• Watch a violinist play with her shadow in this very cool video…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=JGCsyshUU-A
• Another out of control shadow… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRMhoJCQN_0

Shadow Puppet Theatre

• Make a shadow puppet theatre using a cereal box and either waxed paper or printer paper. There are great how-to tutorials both at Jimmie Lanley’s Hub Page (which also includes links to other info about shadow puppets) and on the website for Kix cereal.
• More info on shadow puppets at Coolest Family on the Block.
• Watch a shadow puppet show from my class here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b04NqLb7Myc.  You can watch a kid-created shadow play at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqzv162GBWg Or, for a beautiful work of art, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR6_m_qXbKg&t=215s