Shadow Fun

Listen to the poem “My Shadow” in my last blog post with your child. Then look for some fun ways to play with shadows.

At night walk past a street light and pay attention to your shadows as they go from a small puddle-like shadow beneath you to a very long shadow as you walk farther away from the light. This ties directly in with the poem so re-read the verse about the shadow growing.

Guessing game – Have your child sit facing a wall while you stand behind him or her and make shadows on the wall. Hold several objects in front of a strong flashlight or the light from an LCD projector or slide projector so the shadows fall on the wall. One shadow could be your hand. If you draw it closer and closer to the flashlight it will seem to grab everything in the room. You can also try to make fancy hand shadows. Try some of the shadows from this web page:  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12962/12962-h/12962-h.htm

Shadow show – Hang a sheet in front of a very bright lamp leaving space to stand and move around between the lamp and the sheet. You want your shadow to be seen from the other side of the sheet. Then perform your shadow show. Here are a few ideas for shows:

• Perform an operation. Have someone lie on a table between the light and the sheet. The “doctor” can pull all kinds of items out of the patient he is “operating on.” They can be silly things like shoes and toys, or you can try to pick things that look like organs of the body.
• Cut out shapes of characters in a story, attach them to sticks or pencils, and move them around the screen. Read the story as the shadow shapes act it out.

Enjoy this YouTube shadow show as performed by someone who has mastered the art:

Uploaded by Meesharie on Apr 11, 2008
Hand puppet sillouette to the song “What A wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong.
Performed by Raymond Crowe

by Janice D. Green, author of The Creation and The First Christmas.