Shadows

During our sunny afternoons, we noticed that many students became fascinated with finding their shadows during our outdoor play in the afternoon. There were very curious as to why they could see their shadows only in certain parts of the playground. This curiosity led to a week long inquiry into shadows. Students had questions such as "How are shadows made?" and "Where do we see them?" We discovered through using the projector and the smartboard that we needed "light" to help us make shadows. We also figured out that we had to stand in front of the light to see it. Students brainstormed several sources of light so that we could explain why we see our shadows inside, outside and at night. (flashlight, smartboard, sun, moon)Students experimented with a variety of ways to make shadows such as their hands, their bodies and even stick puppets. Here is a journal we created using the Ipad. Please excuse the dates on the journal ( I could not figure out how to do several entries on the same date!) Shadow Journal