Light and shadow play

The light exploration corner in my class has become very popular in the last few weeks, especially with those children who do not have English as their first language. 

In the first few days, there was a lot of awe and wonder, looking at colours, shapes and the children were fascinated to discover that moving objects on the OHP meant that the objects on the curtain also moved.

 Then one child discovered that shadows were created on the curtain for everyone to see. 

"Look, look! It's me!"

We cut out some shapes together and the two paper children had a 'conversation' together. It was lovely to watch how some of my English native speakers took the lead here and the EAL learners were able to copy new language structures and have a go themselves. These paper children were in a magical fairy land and they were off to visit the rainbow....!

LIght box fun and story telling

I really like these glass nuggets - I got them at a discount store for very little money and the children haven’t stopped playing with them! I put them out next to the light box along with a basket of people. One of my EAL speakers then called me over to tell me the story of the people playing in the swimming pool at their party - great for confidence building and language development!

Overhead projector fun!

Using an overhead projector…

These are just some of the ways that the children have come up with to use the overhead projector during their play:

• Playing with gel numbers
• Writing numbers on acetates and making up games to go with with them
• Using ribbons and scarves to dance in and out of the lights creating shadows
• Using bottles of coloured water (sealed!!) that the children had mixed in a previous activity
• Creating patterns and scenes using translucent shapes
• Exploring colour and light using translucent blocks
• Exploring shadows and silhouettes