Thread by @IdolScribblings

Time for #ScienceLessonAtHome of the day.

Activity - Shadow Play

You will need:
A cardboard box
A lamp or torch
Baking parchment, baking paper or waxed paper
Paper, card and scissors
Some sticks or thin dowels
Sellotape or glue
A dark room

Key Points:
If light encounters an OPAQUE substance, it is blocked, creating a shadow. This happens because the light is REFLECTED and / or ABSORBED by the surface. (The shinier or lighter coloured the surface is. More will be reflected and less will be absorbed.)

Key Points Part 2:

If it encounters a TRANSLUCENT substance then some of the light is TRANSMITTED (allowed through). A TRANSPARENT substance allowes all the light to pass through. We can use this effect to create a Shadow Play.

Making your theatre:

Help your child to cut a large rectangle in the front of their box. The will also need to cut a circle in the back to shine the torch or lamp through, and a slit in the side, near the front of the box to poke the puppets through.

Now glue or sellotape the baking parchment over the large rectangle you made in the front to create a TRANSLUCENT screen.

Use your card and paper to make OPAQUE silhouette puppets. Mount them on the sticks so that you can move them around inside your theatre.

These photos will give you the general idea.

Now turn off the lights, shine the lamp through the hole in the back of the theatre and you're ready to go!

It's now time for your child to make up a play to perform for the family using their puppets.

Primary Students:

The play could be about the famous scientists who discovered how light works. Try Googling Euclid, Isaac Newton, Ibn al-Haytham and Ibn Zakariya al-Razi.
There is a good overview here to get started science.howstuffworks.com/light1.htm

Alternatively it could link to one of your other learning activities. Such as a scene from whichever book you're reading.

Secondary Students:

The play they make up should explain astronomical phenomenon which involve shadows. The phases of the moon and eclipses (lunar and solar). They can research this here:

starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild…

eclipse2017.nasa.gov/how-eclipses-w…

Happy Shadow Playing!