The activity set I would chose is ‘The Sun and the Shadows’. I am planning this for a junior infant class. Children are always so fascinated by shadows so I feel this will be a very engaging activity. I would use this as a follow-on from the night/day lesson.
Get the children to sit in a circle. Ask them to remind you of our night/day lesson. Some prompting questions to help – What happens during the day?/ Where does the sun go at night?/ Why do we need to use lights at home at night but not during the day?
I would then ask the children if they know what a shadow is?/ How do we get shadows?/ Can you give me an example?/ What causes a shadow?
I have a bucket of large toy animals and I will ask the children to pick one.
We will go out side and using chalk I will get the children to place their toy down and trace the shadow of their animal with the chalk. We will leave the animal where it is and go back inside.
In the afternoon we will go back outside and I will ask the children if they notice anything?/ Why did the shadow move?/ What caused the shadow to move?
I will explain to the children that the sun moving caused our animal shadows to move. If we don’t have a sunny day that week I will do the same activity in doors using a flashlight as the sun and black paper with white chalk to show our shadows.