Hey everyone!!! I hope everyone is having a great start to the NEW YEAR! It's always great to have a fresh start and a clean slate. (Although, is it just me or does your new year always begin in August?) : )
One of the things that I have been working on during my winter break is our lesson plans in science. By the way, we have a brand new standard this year in science!! (AND new standards are always exciting!)
Drum roll...our new standard is...
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS!!
I know...so fun...kind of...except...I have never taught light and shadows, EVER!!! (Confession is good for the soul.) I mean, I have always taught first grade standards, AND light and shadows have never been one of our standards until now.
So I definitely had to share what I learned with my first grade friends!! YOU! I have a lot of ideas, freebies, and links that you might be able to use, too. This blog post is part one of two...so hang tight...shadows will be coming next week!!
We are going to launch our unit with Oscar and the Moth by Geoff Waring. He has a great collection of easy to understand books on science. This particular book is about light and shadows. Oscar the cat and his new friend the moth set out on a little journey to learn about shadows and light. Isn't Oscar a cutie?
Light is energy and it makes objects visible and without it, we cannot see anything! So we are going to first discuss the kinds of light that we find in our world and list them by two categories: natural light and artificial light! We are going to use an anchor chart just like The Lesson Plan Diva's chart. Perfect!
(You can check out her anchor chart by clicking on the photo above.)
We are also going to be looking at all the different types of lights in real life. Would you include matches or a lighter? I am still debating.
In the darkroom, I am hanging pictures of objects around the room. I want my students to see them when we shine the flashlight around the darkroom to make them visible because of light. We will discuss how light makes it possible for them to see the objects. And when I turn the flashlight off, the objects are no longer visible. (Yes...I totally expect some shrieks!! Eesh...but in the name of science, right?) In their science journals, they are going to record what they observed by drawing or writing what was visible in the darkroom.
If you would like a copy of the pictures that I am going to use in my
We are also going to be looking at peep boxes. Have you ever used peep boxes? Kindergarten-Lessons.com is where I learned about peep boxes!! You should totally check out the website because they have some great suggestions and ideas for light and shadows! You can click here!
They are not hard to make and you can easily make one for your students to see. Here is an example of one I made:
Without light you can't see anything inside...
But with light, you can see lots of things on the inside! I can't believe this box already had a peep hole!!!!!
My students are going to record what they see inside the peep boxes in their science journals. You can find the scene that I used for my peep box here. It's so fun and exciting to look inside!!! I will be working on another one this week and I will let you know how it goes!!
What kind of activities do you do for light and shadows? I am dying to know!!
For the second part of our light and shadow unit, we will be talking about shadows and shadows will go along perfectly with Groundhog's Day.
Yeah!!
So come on back!
I can't wait to show you what we are doing with shadows!
Hoping you have a great week back!!
