Indoor Shadow Shapes

Materials

• desk lamp with a 100-watt bulb (or a slide projector)
• flat blank wall, projector screen, or other surface to project shadows onto
• multiple objects that look different from different angles (book, ruler, comb, pencil, bottle, mug, hair elastic, paper plate, etc.)
• camera

Key Science Concepts

• You can make shadows with your body and other objects.
• You can change the shape of a shadow by moving and turning your body or the object making the shadow or by moving the light source.

Vocabulary

Encourage children to use vocabulary related to shadows, like light, outline, position, rotate, turn, move, and direction. Emphasize science process words like describe, compare, observe, notice, and predict.

Directions

Explain to children that they are going to make as many different-shaped shadows as they can using only one object.

1. Have each child choose an object and hold it in front of the lamp. Ask children to make predictions about what their object’s shadow will look like.
2. Dim the lights and turn on the lamp. Were their predictions correct?
3. Now ask children to change the shape of their objects’ shadows. Ask,
   • How many different shadow shapes can you make using only one object?
   • How can you change the shape of your object’s shadow?

Take photos of the shadows the children create, which you can look at together later. You can also use children’s descriptions of their shadows to create captions for the photos.

Reflect and Share

Gather children to discuss how they were able to change the shape of their objects’ shadows. Ask,

• How could one object make so many different shadows?
• What did you do to change the shape of your object’s shadow?

Related Video