Aims | Outline | Curriculum Relevance | Background | Activities |
The Blue Dragon
Programme 12: Shadow Play
This programme aims to develop children's
understanding of sources of light and shadows.
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The characters are to be found outside the walls of
an ancient castle with the sun setting and casting shadows. The
friends make scary shadow characters and a giant dragon shadow
emerges, but as the sun sets the shadows gradually disappear.
A new animal character, an owl, is introduced and the characters
explore mirrors and reflections and consider why the Moon can be
seen when the Sun cannot be seen.
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The programme
explores:
- light sources;
- making shadows;
- making shadows change;
- developing understanding that opaque materials can
produce a shadow.
There are many curriculum
links that can be made, for example:
- English – children could create a set of
instructions explaining to someone else how to make a shadow
puppet.
- Design and technology – design and make a
shadow puppet.
- Drama – develop and perform a shadow puppet
play.
- Music – children could create sound effects to
accompany their shadow play.
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Some materials are transparent, which means that they
allow light through and images can be seen clearly. Translucent
materials also allow light through, but less so than transparent
materials, the result being that you cannot see images clearly
through, for example, translucent glass. Opaque materials block
light, they do not allow it to go through. This means that on the
other side of an opaque object the area is dark, hence a
shadow.
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Shadow activities in the classroom are most
successful when children have access to an overhead projector
(OHP). Allow children to bring to school a small soft toy or doll,
for example a teddy bear. Using the OHP and screen allow children
to explore making shadows with their toys and ask them to find out
how they can make the shadow bigger and smaller.
In the Blue Dragon Resource Book there is a series of
recipes for children to use at the back of the book. One of the
recipes is for children to make biscuits using cutters of different
shapes or animals to make shadow biscuits as shown in the recipe.
The children could create animal biscuits and give them to a
'buddy' in the school who then evaluates the biscuit, giving
feedback to say what they liked about it.
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