Light...

When we were doing our music time last week N. noticed the reflection on the ceiling from the sun shining through the windows & onto her cymbals. I wondered if this observation was something they may want to follow up on, so I decided to move the class into the "light room" (in the back room) to provide further opportunities to explore lights & reflections. I provided the light table, a strand of decorative lights, flashlights, translucent blocks and materials, a reflective mirror surface, and several other odds & ends items. We talked briefly about what light is & where it comes from--they were able to draw a correlation between power that comes from the plug & power that comes from batteries. Then I set them loose to explore.

The flashlights were one of the first things the children went too, each took one and shined it around the classroom. I lay down with a flashlight & shined it on the ceiling, just to see what would happen--B grabbed his flashlight and tried to cover my light. This soon evolved into a game of "catch", with the children chasing each reflection around on the ceiling, laughing gleefully when they "caught" another light. When they wanted the lights to "go home" they would switch them off.

L was initially nervous about coming into the darkned room (apparently a wory about ghosts is lingering from Halloween), but once she became involved in the game she quickly forgot her concerns.

After awhile they tired of the flashlight games & P pointed out the box of baby toys that was stored in the closet. As a general rule I dislike baby toys with lights & music (overstimulating for baby--even worse for mom/teacher!), but they actually tied in very well with our exploration. We spent some time playing "catch" with a ball that had lights on it, rolling it from one person to another.




One thing lead to another, and soon our exploration of lights was abandoned in favor of a game of limbo....we have to get our energy out somehow when it's too cold to go outside!!!

Overall, they were less interested in this exploration than I had expected them to be. I may re-visit it after the holidays to see if it goes anywhere....or maybe not. Who knows what the kids have in mind?