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I'm Jackie.
I care for six children in my home, ages three to five.
Our investigation of shadows has been really fun so far.
- You see the shadow.
- Look at the shadow.
I had planned some structured activities, and the children
had learned so much.
But I also know kids need freedom to follow
their own interests.
So I make sure I set up some different learning centers
in my home where the kids can just play,
try out different ideas and make discoveries of their own.
The first learning center I set up was just a white table
with a desk lamp so kids could practice making shadows.
I tried to find objects that would both surprise
and challenge the kids.
- Whoa.
It's so big.
- And moving the exploration from the shadow center
to the shadow puppet theater
added a whole new level of energy.
(giggles)
The children were so excited,
they could hardly wait for their turns.
- Good thing it's not tracing on my real self.
- I always try to bring our investigations outside.
For an outdoor learning center, I brought out a box of chalk
and let the children trace their shadows.
We're going to come back later
and we're going to compare our shadows.
What's going to happen to our shadows later?
- They're going to get bigger,
and bigger and bigger and bigger.
- After making our tracings, the children were able
to look at their shadows each time we went outside.
So what happened to your shadow?
- It's next to me.
- Tell me which position the sun is.
Is it on this side or this side?
Because where is the light?
When we came back to these tracings, we were able
to talk about the sun moving through the sky
and how the clouds blocked our shadows.
- My shadow's gone.
- Can you tell me about the shadow of the plastic?
What can you tell me?
Even when we're not working at one of our learning centers,
I look for ways to bring shadows into our everyday conversations.
During the snack outside, the wrapper from some crackers
created an interesting shadow.
- This is shiny and it's shiny on the table.
- Oh...
I also took advantage of our shaded play area.
We were able to hunt for shadows.
And we discovered what was casting a shadow over the yard.
Look up.
What's covering the light from the sun?
- The tree.
- Being able to explore shadows in many different ways
helps to keep it fun for the kids, and also reinforces
the ideas about science that they are learning.