Guess Whose Shadow?

Today we started the day with clear, colored shapes in the Touch and Feel.  The kids identified the shapes they knew and even learned a new one.....hexagon.  For whatever reason, they LOVED saying that word!  They looked through the shapes and saw that it changed the color of things that they could see.  Who knew shapes could be that much fun!

Ms. Michelle came today and she had some fun new things to show us.  We were outside for our activities today because we needed the extra space.  Even though it was really chilly, the kids did so good waiting their turn and following the directions.  Each child took a bean bag and tossed it at an upside down bowl.  If they tossed it hard enough, and in just the right place, the bowl would flip over and reveal a funny face.  They picked up the bean bag and carried it across a long balance beam.  Then they had to follow a whole trail of colored bowls with faces seeing how many they could flip over before making their way back to the start. 

 

Next we had some messy finger fun.  Ms. Michelle had this slimy, wet, blue "mixture" (for lack of a better word) that they kids were supposed to explore.  Every child did touch the mixture....but it was not a big hit.  They couldn't really figure out what to do with it.  It wasn't drippy, but it wasn't solid either.  Very strange.....very, very strange. 

After some COLD fun on the playground, we headed inside to read our story.  Guess Whose Shadow by Stephen Swinburne.  This is a book all about shadows.  The first half of the book describes some basic facts about shadows.  The second half shows pictures of some shadows and asks the reader to "guess whose shadow".  The kids were so good at this game.....they were super specific and could give good explanations about why they thought the picture was whatever they guessed.

We made a chart about the important facts we learned about shadows to help us remember.  Everyone added to the list, and then we all read it back several times.

For science today, we extended our game and made some shadows in the classroom.  We made a shadow stage with a white sheet and used a flashlight to add some light. We started with shape shadows...circle, triangle, square, rectangle, star and heart. After making a guess the kids needed to explain how they figured it out..counting the number of sides, the number of points or if the lines were straight or curved. Then, we added some harder shadows. They guessed a car, tree, flower, house, person and dog. 

During centers the kids practiced their letter formation and independently explored the shadow stage. They loved to guessing how many finger they had up or using different objects around the classroom to make shadows.