On Friday we culminated our light inquiry by exploring a few other objects and reading the book, “What Are Light Waves?”
My students explored my kaleidoscopes much longer than I had anticipated. They will remain a choice for a while based on the interest I saw in them on Friday.
(I might try to have them create their own!)
Since we had learned that light is actually made up of all of the colors of the rainbow, we created rainbow jars. For this we simply filled up mason jars with water and food coloring.
The kids loved looking at the rainbows shimmering in our classroom!
(This produced lots of stories about rainbows!)
They also explored finding rainbows in old CDs.
For an art extension, we discussed that many artists paint different light sources. I showed them Van Gogh’s “starry night” and set up a provocation at our easel. My students tried to replicate the painting during exploration centers.
They really enjoyed this work!
Finally, we learned how to make shadow puppets. My students put on NUMEROUS shadow puppet shows! This was a great activity that worked on storytelling, teamwork, and collaboration. It was fun to listen to their puppet shows and watch them turn their shadow puppets into different objects.
If you would like to teach these lessons, they are all in my Light and Sound pack that is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store and my blog store.
Next week, we will explore SOUND. If you would like to see a glimpse of all of our fun activities before they make it to my blog, feel free to follow me on Instagram! (adayinfirstgrade)
Page One (The Light Exploration Begins)
Page Two (Students Explore Shadows)
Thank you for such a detailed post. Your pictures are beautiful and this whole unit is very inspiring. I am looking forward to trying as many of these ideas as I can when we do our light unit this spring.