Professional Materials: Color, Light, and Shadows

Colors are a popular curriculum concept for many classrooms. Often, they are taught from isolation to other content areas. However, color exists due to the reflection of light on objects, making for wonderful STE opportunities. Another natural extension includes shadows as children learn that shadows are the result of light being blocked. Framework opportunities within this unit may include Physical Sciences (matter and interaction), Earth Sciences (the sun and shadows) through the exploration of the Crosscutting Concepts of patterns, cause and effect, scale, proportion and quantity, and stability & change.

Shadow and Light Exploration Handout

This 1-page handout has been adapted from an article by the University of Northern Iowa Regents’ Center for Early Developmental Education in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The handout summarizes the developmental stages that children progress through as they learn to understand shadows along with key points to support children’s exploration with light and shadow.

Rainbow Scavenger Hunt

This scavenger hunt can be done as a group or individually, depending on the ages and abilities of your children. It supports children’s observation skills as they search to find matches to the colors on the page. This is a great tool that can be used almost anywhere: in the classroom, on the playground, or during a neighborhood walk.

See how the topic unfolds in different RISE classrooms!

Exploring colors

During the unit on colors, teachers encouraged children to match color paddles to information on the Question of the Day poster. Children observed the characteristics of insects when sorting colors, and they also explored cause and effect through mixing watercolors with droppers and paper towels. Children also connected their observations to their daily lives.

Exploring shadows

During the unit on shadows, children observed their own shadows during neighborhood walks. Children made connections to literacy and science while enjoying a shadow puppet theater, using flashlights, shadow puppets and a head lamp.