I am so happy to introduce one of the nicest, sweetest and most generous bloggers I know to you all. She is my classroom, techie go-to person, and her blog name ‘Sharing Kindergarten’ says it all. She’s here today to offer you a sweet Freebie and to tell you all about how she teaches her sweet kinders about ‘lights and shadows.’ I am happy to call her my friend. Please welcome Mary Amoson.
Hi Sweet Kinder Friends!
This is
from
I am beyond thrilled to be guest blogging with you today to chat about Lights and Shadows science lessons that will turn Groundhogs Day into one of your favorite weeks of the entire year.
Let’s get going to chat about some science explorations fun…and YES there is a freebie involved.
This week’s lesson plans are broken down into 5 days…
Day 1- What is Light?
Day 2- What Does Light Look Like?
Day 3- What is a Shadow?
Day 4- What Makes a Shadow?
Day 5- Discovering Lights and Shadows
And all the lesson plans are written out for you will book suggestions
and reminders about materials needed.
Plus, this unit has a TONS of Printable Activities and Playable Games.
We started the week writing down what we THINK about light.
Nothing is wrong here from the minds of these
I am picking their brains and seeing what THEY think about light.
These are the student printable to use with Day 1 and 2.
Once we learn about what light is…we refer back to chart to correct our incorrect thinking.
On day two we really talk a lot about what light looks like…because we actually don’t KNOW what light looks like.
We start the lesson by writing and drawing a picture of what we THINK light looks like.
Again, we follow our plans and use MAGIC GLASSES to diffuse the light.
This allows us to SEE what light really looks like…
IT LOOKS LIKE A RAINBOW.
It is like truly looking into the minds of my
I always video the moment my students close their eyes, put on the glasses,
and then open their eyes to SEE the colors lights make.
It is awesome.
Check out some of work showing what we learned about light in two days.
And this is an older version of the pack before I updated it…
I could easily see a teacher using this idea to create a STEM lesson how to make magic glasses or something to diffuse the light as well… just throwing it out there.
We also talk about sources of light…or things that give us light.
This is usually pretty easy for kinders.
But kinders NEED to play with science ideas.
So I made a fun 20 Questions game.
{And it is FREE by clicking here.}
There are 10 sources of light cards and a mat.
One student puts on the headband and gets a card placed in it.
They don’t know what card they have.
They use the mat to ask their classmates questions to figure out what image they have on their headband.
I love this game for asking and answering questions as well as higher order thinking skills.
But, I have to warn you that your students WILL love this game so much,
you will need to prep two of these for your class.
Since I always include Science and Social Studies into my Daily 5, I had to make some sorts and ABC order printables.
Once we know all about light, we have to investigate shadows.
{That groundhog is popping out of his burrow soon!}
And that means I have to cover up light from entering my room.
My
get excited every time we do a pocket chart sorting activity like this Shadow and No Shadow activity.
We these cards we “predict” what objects will make shadows and which will not.
Then we pull out flashlights and as similar objects as we can find in the classroom to test our predictions out.
Remember kinders NEED to play with science ideas.
Check out these PERFECT shadow printables.
There is a matching science chart to write down their shadow predictions and results.
Can you see it on the left of this picture?
We also have some writing prompts and cut and sorts.
One game I made sure to add was this… Object and Shadow matching.
I know Prek students would love it, it would make a fantastic memory game, but I really made it to help my class pick partners.
How?
Well, I print out all the cards and make sure I have a card for everyone.
{If we have an odd number of students, I play too!
Woo Hoo!}
I hand out the cards and we all hide them so no one can see our cards.
And we stand up.
On the count of three we look for our matching partner to do our shadow testing with!
Any way to add learning and an element of fun calls to me…
and my students.
All these ideas and printables can be found here…
But I want you stop by my blog
by clicking {here}
to grab even more Lights and Shadows ideas…
like using a cheap LIGHT TABLE to learn with…
Shadow Dancing…
and more!
And don’t forget to grab you FREEBIE 20 Question’s Game.
Thanks for sharing, Mary!
Awesome post, Mary!
Jennifer
First Grade Blue Skies
I’ve got the pack prepped and ready for next week. My glasses came in this week! 🙂
I have this pack prepped and ready for next week!!! You rock Mary!! Not so bad yourself Marsha 😉
Love this post! I wish I had it last week when we did light and shadows!
Really a great blog post Mary. Great lesson plans written by you! Magic glasses are wonderful. I am also a teacher in Phoenix kindergarten, and would love to try this to learn things to my kid’s.