At Beachside, Ms Erika and Ms Enya followed the children’s interests and their own observations to support the class concept of Shadows and Light. They set up a shadow box with some images to inspire the children to explore with it, however, they realised quickly that the table was too tall for the children to see the shadows they were creating and they lose interest quickly.

The teachers decided to give this idea another try. They hung a white sheet from the ceiling to create a backdrop for the shadows. It worked for a little while until the children were more interested in just hiding behind the sheet than casting shadows (which was also fun). 

Finally, the teachers re-arranged the furniture so they had one large white wall. They blacked out the curtains and set up a little scene in front of the wall that cast interesting shadows. They gave children some flashlights to explore the shadows of familiar toys. Children really enjoyed bringing different toys to the white wall and casting different positions to see what their shadow looked like. Some children took a few coloured lenses up to the light to see how the room would change colour. They even put two lenses together to see what new colours it would create! We noticed they really took an interest to the butterflies we had hanging from the ceiling and they realised that if they shone multiple lights on the butterflies, there would be more shadows then there were of actual butterflies. 

We have taken this into account and decided to make some butterflies of our own with the middle decorated in coloured cellophane. We can’t wait until the children see them and react to the colours as well as the shadows of the butterflies.