Step into the Light
Brie’s group will be exploring Light and Colors this semester! Their investigations over the coming weeks will deepen their understanding of light, shadows, reflection, refraction, and colors. Their research began with asking questions. What do you wonder about?
“How can you prove that sunlight is hot?”
“What are the dangers of light?”
“How does light get trapped in a lightbulb?”
“How does light make a rainbow?”
“What can light do?”
“Has anyone ever been to the sun?”
To begin their investigation students stepped into the light to create shadow puppets! They made observations about where the shadows appeared and where they did not appear.
“When it is a sunny day, you can make a shadow!” - B.D.
“The shadow is the opposite of a color.” - G.A.
“No matter what color the shape is, its shadow is black.” - E.B.
Students traced their shadow puppets and left them in the same position while they played outside. Thirty minutes later, they returned and noticed that their shadow had moved. Each observation leads to new questions! “Why is the sun moving the shadow?”
To continue their investigation of the relationship between a light source and a shadow, Brie’s group watched a short Indonesian shadow puppet show and built a shadow theater together. In the construction zone, they set up a frame and screen, blacked out the windows with black garbage bags, and experimented about where to put the lamp.
They are in the process of creating a shadow story that they can tell together with their puppets!
Questions for home:
What is light?
What is a shadow?
Why did your puppet’s shadow move when you came back 30 minutes later?
Brie’s group’s Week at a Glance:
Communication Literacy
Reading - continued practice sounding out words in context, making connections through repetitive text, rhyming games
Word study -
continued practice with short a CVC words
introduction to digraphs and differentiating between the “j” and “ch” sounds
exploring beginning blends (sk, sl, sm, sn and sp)
Writing - Journal writing, creative story writing, documenting mathematical thinking with labeling sentences, play acting a story together
Reading with a friend
Read aloud!
Patterns and Modeling
Exploring and defining the attributes of rectangles
Building arrays and frames
Assessing rectangular classroom and kitchen objects using square corners
Measuring length and width, adding sides
Analyzing photographs and creating documentation of their shape exploration
Place value game
Theme
Introduction to light
Sharing questions about light
Shadow puppets, exploring traditional Indonesian shadow puppetry
Building a Shadow theater and creating a performance
