Our Hummingbird class has been learning about light and dark during our topic work.
We started off by exploring what is a natural source of light and what is a ‘man-made’ source of light. We brought our learning outside to draw around our own shadows and investigate how our shadows seem to ‘move’ even though we are standing in the same spot, at different times during the day!
Read on to find out more about our shadow show, firework poetry and science work. There are lots of photos of us busy exploring!
Next we investigated how light travels – we learnt how light travels in a straight line, and we tested this out by creating our own ‘shadow show’ using a flash light and our hands to create shadow animals.
After we looked at fireworks and created our own ‘firework’ poetry paying particular attention to the colours we saw. Would you be able to see the fireworks so brightly during the day time?
We looked at our class globe and discussed how when it is day time in Provo, in other parts of the world it is night time and dark. This is because of how the earth spins on it’s axis, orbiting the sun.
Since then we have become space explorers, studying the moon and learning all about its different phases, from full moon to waxing crescent! We know that the moon is a ‘reflective’ light source and that it doesn’t produce its own light.
We know that the moon and the stars simply do not disappear from the sky during the day, it is because the sun is too bright to see them during the day.
We went on to learn about our planets in our solar system, and that some are solid and some are gas planets. We discussed and investigated how planets closer to the sun are lighter and warmer, and how planets that are further away from the sun are darker and cooler.
We made a mobile of our solar system to remind us of the order of the planets from Mercury to Pluto.
Finally we created some beautiful light and dark art work using wax crayons and black paint, thinking carefully about creating a night time scene, remembering what we have learnt about reflective light and what shines brightly when the rest of the country is dark.
