What better week to introduce light and shadows than the week that the groundhog ALWAYS (at least that is what it feels like) sees his shadow! :) And, we read and talked about the groundhog, and made this cute craft.
This cute groundhog image was found here.
This discovery center from Lakeshore Learning was a great hands-on way to discover light and shadows. We used our flashlights to project light onto different objects, and moved the light to make the shadows bigger and smaller, just like we see happen with the sun. We also had some other manipulatives to review our color mixing with the primary colors.
We had fun checking out our own shadows too! And posing them in silly poses!
Interestingly enough, my Tuesday-Thursday class had to do our shadows indoors because it was a cloudy day and we couldn't see our shadows outside. Bummer! But, a good lesson on light and how it is needed for us to see our shadow. We talked about how our body blocks the light/sun from hitting the wall/ground, and our shadow is created.
This shadowbox center was a hit with your kids. They took turns projecting light on to different objects and guessing what was projected by seeing the shadow.
We discussed how shadows are always dark and not colorful. Although you can guess an object by the shape of its shadow, it is impossible to know what color it is. The kids found shapes at this memory match center, and then found their dark shadow for a match.
This light table math center was a fun twist on our addition facts. We used our transparent counting chips and dice for some simple addition problems here. I had drawn a plus sign and an equal sign on the light tables, and the kids would roll the die once, add that many chips to the table, twice and add that many chips again, and then add them up and add the total amount of chips to our equation.
Your children brought home a letter shadowing activity this week to continue to practice their letters at home. We also practiced shadowing our letters at this center with our letters and wooden lines.
And, we shadowed some three and four-letter words with our magnetic writing boards.
These blocks at our dramatic play center have transparent colorful centers, so with these and some flashlights, we had fun creating colorful masterpieces.
We introduced position words this week. We use them all the time, but don't even realize it. This center had some flashcards and manipulatives to help us learn over, under, beside, and in. One side of the card spelled out these position words for us, and the other side showed us how our objects should look so we could double check our work.
In the sensory table we had groundhogs of course. We couldn't talk about the groundhog all week without playing with him too! These groundhogs could burrow and hide in the sand, and then pop up to see their shadow.
We are continuing to work on our scissor practice. We cut some jagged and squiggly lines this week.
And, for some fine motor practice, we worked on snapping, buttoning and tying......to include practice on tying our shoes!
These handsome hunks were our stars of the week this week! We have
Spencer
and
Dominic!
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