Early Science  /  Shadows  /  Week 2: Lesson 4  /  Activity

Making Shadow Puppets

 

Shadows
Hands-On

Children create shadow puppets and mount them on coffee stirrers, craft sticks, or rulers.

Materials for making shadow puppets are laid out on the table: crayons, glue, glitter, scissors, character cut-outs, tape, and craft sticks. Two students sit at a table and use crayons to color their paper character cut-outs.

At the Art Center, provide puppet cutouts and materials for creating shadow puppets.

Decorate the puppets with markers and crayons.

 

Materials

 
Materials PDF
  • Cardstock paper
  • Craft sticks, coffee stirrers, or rulers
  • Crayons and/or markers
  • Feathers, ribbons, sequins, glitter, stickers, or other lightweight collage materials
  • Flashlights
  • Hole punchers
  • Kids’ scissors
  • Shadow Puppets (PDF)
  • Tape or glue sticks

Preparation

  1. Print out copies of the two-page Shadow Puppets PDF (one copy for every two children, so each child can make two puppets). Puppets can also be made from scratch without the Shadow Puppets PDF.
 

Directions: Lessons 4, 5, 7, 9

Learning Center
  1. Children can color and decorate shadow puppet cutouts, or they can create shadow puppets from scratch. Adding feathers, pieces of ribbon, and other collage materials to the puppet can add interest. Hole punchers can also add interesting features.
  2. The shadow puppets can be taped to any stick: a craft stick, ruler, coffee stirrers, etc. Children can use their shadow puppets to put on plays in the Shadow Theater and the Shadow Centers.
  3. Circulate through this art-focused Learning Center as children work, and engage the children in conversation. Encourage them to listen to each other and build on each other’s responses. Possible discussion ideas:
    • Tell me about what you are making.
    • You have some nice feathers on your puppets. Do you think you will be able to see the feathers in the shadow?
    • How could we find out? (If needed, point out the flashlight on the table.) Good idea. Let’s turn on the flashlight. Can you see the feathers in the shadow?
    • What do you think would happen if we used the hole puncher to punch out “eyes” on the bunny? Do you think you would be able to see those holes in the shadow? Why do you think that? Let’s try it out and see!
  4. Encourage children to use their shadow puppets at the Large Shadow Theater Learning Center.
Length of Play

5–15 min.

Group Size
In the Schedule
 
Vocabulary
  • dark
  • light
  • shadow
 
Learning Goals
Science
  • Observe and describe shadows (identify the light source, the object that blocks the light, and the shadow or darker area on the surface on the opposite side of the light source).
  • Observe and describe how a shadow changes when the light source is moved (shadow becomes bigger when the light moves closer to the blocker and smaller when the light moves farther away from the blocker).