Sunlight peeks through your bedroom shades in the morning. You open your eyes and look around. You see your bed, your desk, and the books on your bookshelf. If you opened your eyes in the middle of the night, these things would be only dimly visible. Do you know why? It is because we need light to see. We see because light bounces off objects and hits our eyes. When light hits objects, it can act in a few ways. Light is absorbed, or taken in, by some matter. It is reflected, or bounced back, by other matter. Some matter refracts, or bends, light.
Our EY3 children have started learning about light. During this IPC Unit: Seeing the Light, the children focus on different things. When the sun is not shining, we use lightbulbs or flashlights to make light. Without light, we could not see. Without sunlight, plants could not make food, either. If there were no plants, all the plant-eating animals would die. Then all the animals that eat those animals would die, too. We all need light!
The EY3 kids at LIK have experienced the different sources of light in our kindergarten, they learned about music and songs that have light as their theme and discovered that seeds and plants need to grow in the light. Additionally, our EY3’s learned about many different light sources in our universe and found out that some materials can even reflect light.
Recently, they learned how shadows are made and discovered the wonders of light, lighting effects and shadows. Which led them to perform their own shadow puppet play! Our teachers helped them to build a little theatre from an empty cardboard box with the bottom cut out and replaced with very thin white paper. The children created lovely little shadow puppets on sticks cut out of black paper. The theatre was placed on the edge of a table. A source of direct light is necessary, which a simple table lamp can provide when put behind the screen. Thank you parents for providing those! The children placed the puppets between the light and the screen (the closer to the screen the better). It has been so much fun and EY3’s couldn’t wait to put on a show!
While learning about the letter and sound ‘Ff‘, such as fish, fun and gruff, EY3 read the story 3 Billy Goats Gruff and the 3 Little Pigs. These stories served as the inspiration for the shadow play. They began planning the performances. Last Wednesday the big day had come and all Nursery 2, EY1 and EY2 children were invited to watch the two plays. With the light and shadows, it became more than an ordinary puppet show. All children enjoyed the magical performances. We had so much fun.
Each child had their input on how the character would be acted out, they worked together as a group while discussing their ideas. Our EY3’s made the characters and story truly come alive. What resulted was an enchanting story, brilliantly performed!