Capture shadow puppets by tracing them and turning them into stick puppets.

• 1.

  Create a light and shadow wall in your classroom by dimming the light sources. Use flashlights or other projectors to cast light on an open wall or chalk board.

• 2.

  Play with hand puppetry by making rabbits, crocodiles, birds, and other shadow creatures with your arms and hands on the open wall.

• 3.

  Work with a partner to trace each other's hand shadows onto oak tag or posterboard with Crayola® Washable Markers.

• 4.

  Cut each traced hand shadow from the paper using Crayola Scissors. Add details to the hand shadow with markers.

• 5.

  Attach a craft stick to the back of each shadow puppet with Crayola School Glue. Dry.

• 6.

  To experiment with light and shadows, predict and then test how varying the distance between the puppet and light source changes its shadow. Experiment with various light and puppet positions. Record effects on the shadows.

Standards

• LA: Read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grade level text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• LA: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
• SCI: Obtain information that animals have structures that allow them to respond to stimuli through instinct or memory.
• SCI: Investigate and explain that for an object to be seen, light must be reflected off the object and enter the eye.
• VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

Adaptations

• Students collaborate to write a play for their shadow puppets. Be prepared to perform it for classmates or younger students.
• Students create 3-D shadow puppets using Crayola Model Magic. Build long, thin, and unusually shaped puppets by pressing the modeling compound around straws, paper towel rolls, or other recycled materials. Explore how shadows differ from the flat paper shadow puppets.
• Students devise a game to play with their shadow puppets. Collaborate in small groups to write the rules for the games. Be prepared to teach classmates how to play.