Exploring Shadows

For the past few weeks the Preschool and Pre-K classes have been exploring shadows. This interest came about because Karen Thibodeaux performed a shadow puppet show for the UNM Kid’s Campus. Students were very curious about how and what made Karin’s puppets work.  We wanted to help students understand concept of shadows. 

Our aim was to help students experiment with the difference between a shadow outside and a shadow inside.  When they were outside they began to understand that the sun is what creates shadows.

We started by asking students what they know about shadows:

What is a shadow?

Langdon -When you walk you can make a shadow of yourself. Look at my shadow its doing what I do.

Jayden- When you walk your shadow follows you. You have to have sun to make a shadow

Kamila- You can make Shadows puppets with your hands.

Jonah -Light makes a shadow.

Maximo-Shadows are darker and the light is shinier.  Shadows happen in the light. Teacher a black monster is following me.

Jesus- You cannot have a shadow when it is dark.

Isaiah- Shadows move when you move. Shadows move in the light.

James- We see our own shadows (looks down at the shadow of the fence) these shadows look different then my shadow.

Both classes also went on a shadow hunt and saw many different shadows such as trees, bushes, poles, fences and cars.

The Pre-K class experimented with how the sun’s position in the sky affects the size of shadows.   We help students understand this concept by having them notice where their shadow was and marking it with chalk.  We asked students to predict whether they thought their shadow would grow or shrink in five minutes. All students thought that their shadow would grow. Later we went back to see if the shadow had changed, and they had!  When we asked them how they thought this happened, here are some of the things they said:

Did your Shadow get smaller or bigger?

Sam- My Shadow got bigger like my dad’s shadow.

Addison- The sun makes a shadow.

Why did your shadow grow?

Meadow- The sun made me grow. The sun and moon live in outer space. 

Jonathan- The sunlight

Isaiah – The sun goes away and the moon comes out.

Jayden- The sun goes up (we look back at James Shadow) It went up because the sun went up. 

Students began to understand that their shadows grow due to the sun rotating the Earth. 

 

After the exploration of shadows outside we move inside. We asked students if shadows could be inside and how. Here are some of their ideas:

Quin- The shadow is different on the inside and the outside.

Ali- Turn on the light so we can see the shadow

Tomas- When you are outside you see yourself. 

Diego- Teacher how do you make the shadows go away?

Tomas- Turn off the light

Pearl- Teacher how do you bring back the shadow?

Diego- Turn on the light!

What makes a shadow?

Paloma- When you walk in the sun.  You can’t make a shadow when it is dark, you need light!

Teacher- Can you make a shadow inside?

Paloma- Yes (she gets up and goes over to the window) See, teacher here is a shadow inside.

Sophia- I see Elsa’s shadow, because of the light over here.

After students understood that light is what created shadows inside, we helped them explore this further by hanging a sheet in the studio so they could see how a light creates shadows inside. Students had a great time discovering their shadows inside and guessing who was behind the sheet. 

 

 

 

 

Jayden, Maximo, Jonah, Vincent and Aurora were looking for shadows. When all of a sudden Jayden noticed a shadow of a light pole. He wanted to see how long it was. He told the others to lie down on the pavement and line up with the shadow. As the shadow hunt continued, the children found another  shadow of a light pole. Jayden then called another group over to help measure the large light pole.  Children worked together to measure the shadow. It took 10 children and 1 teacher!

 

 

After discovering shadows inside and out we had Karin come back to make shadow puppets with us. Students were so excited to see her and create their own puppets.

Demitri- Look I made a woodpecker. I made a tree for it and a branch.  My woodpecker says peck, peck, peck, then timber (as he moves his puppet down).

Jonathan – I making a wasp nest; they are chasing people.

Thalia- I made a heart puppet.

Meadow- If we put it on the bottom they can stand.  Watch come on this other side and look at it.

Kamila- I made heart shadow puppet.

Jesus- Teacher Ali, I made fire, can you hold it so I can see the shadow.

Keenoh- I made a spaceship; it goes all the way to space; can you see that?

Ben- Look at my shadow puppet, it is a rocket ship.  It goes all the way to heaven.

Addison- Monster it says GGGGGGGGER 

Sam- Volcano, it is going to explode 

James- A flying gorilla climbing monkey, he jumps all around.

Christian- Square, (he smiles as summer hold his shadow puppet up to the light) Look at that my shadow puppet

Maximo- Big lava slide, that flows down the mountain.

Arora-  A bird.  My bird needs a tree and a branch to sit in and it swings for the kids.

 Vincent- An awesome bat; it fly’s in the dark because it is a shadow puppet.

Daisy- A fairy with wings, she fly’s.

Jonah- Rocket, look at the shadow it makes teacher.

 

 

After the shadow puppets we wanted to show students other ways shadow could be made such as using the overhead projector. We thought a good way to do this was have students do sand drawings using the overhead projector. When working with shadow puppets and shadow drawing students were amazed by the phenomenon of shadows. 

During this study teachers observed the evolution of children’s ideas about how shadows are formed both inside with light and outside with the sun.  During the teacher’s reflective meeting we determined that our next step in studying will be focusing on the properties of shadows. We will do this by setting up different objects on the table. We will ask students to make a shadow of the object and if they can move the shadow. After they make a few shadows we will ask them to make a shadow on a certain spot. We will also ask students if they can create two shadows with one object and how they think they could do that.

New Mexico Early Learning Guidelines meet during this study:

#6 the child communicates experiences, ideas, and feelings through speaking.

#10 the child demonstrates understanding of geometrical spatial concepts

#11 the child demonstrates an understanding of non-standard units to measure and makes comparisons

#13 the child demonstrates appreciation for the arts

#14 the child uses the scientific methods to investigate the physical and natural worlds and to hypothesize and make predictions

#20 the child works cooperatively with other children and adults

#23 the child is open and curious to learn new things

#24 the child takes initiative

#27 the child displays persistence and pursues challenges

#28 the child uses problem-solving skills