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:
I heard in the ether that there was a Facebook group called "Christans Against Dinosaurs". So, I searched for it out of morbid curiosity. Please join me on a tour of the oryctodromeus hole I fell down. First, what I understand is the OG group.🧵 1/15
In response to the Christian threat the Dinosaurs have formed their own Facebook Group. Apparently the Dinosaurs outnumber the Christians 4:1. I am concerned that there may not be enough Christians to feed all the Dinosaurs. Hopefully, most of them are herbivores. 2/15
The Battle Royale is now in progress! Move over lions. The Christians have a new adversary entering the arena! The Raptor Resistance. 3/15
This has reminded me of a tale, passed down through three generations of my family, about a weapons test that went humorously wrong. (Although not as spectacularly as the Panjandrum.)
My Grandfather Graham Lee was one of the scientists working on the Bouncing Bomb with Barnes Wallis (whatever the film might suggest, Wallis didn't do it all himself). He was a chemist specialising in explosives and furzes.
Here he is with my Grandma, Dad and Auntie Ann.
During the time when they were testing & training at Ladybower Reservoir in Derbyshire, they had to ensure each dummy bomb was confirmed at the bottom of the reservoir or recovered at dawn. This was to ensure enemy espionage did not get wind of the design or the plan of attack.
As we once more restrict our movement to help save lives, here is a reminder of the deities in the Idol Scribblings pantheon who can help us get through this.
A worshipper of Sloth can flick through all 999 television channels like a Catholic prays their way around the rosary. idolscribblings.blog/2020/03/29/slo…
If you would prefer your Wine Marten with white text for a dark coloured garment (which will hide the splashes of Claret), click here... redbubble.com/shop/ap/579541…
(I am always impressed that Buttercup pushes The Man in Black off Carl Wark so hard that he lands nine miles away in Cave Dale. That's a good angry shove you've got there girl.)
Anyway back to the holiday.
Played a bit of Historic Graveyard Bingo in Castleton.
I scored for, "The stonemason accidentally ran out of space".