Light and Shadow Exploration

Year 6 have been shining during their learning about light in their Science lessons. The children first shared their prior knowledge and thought of interesting things that they would like to find out during this block; including, how do we measure the speed of light? The children learned how light travels in straight lines and, by using string, demonstrated this in groups to each other, explaining the journey of the light from the source to the eye.

In Art, the children looked at the work of Belgian artist, Vincent Ball, who uses objects’ shadows as part of his artwork. The children all had a go at creating their own artwork, experimenting with finger shadows and adding drawings to those shadows to make simple figures. Keeping your fingers still and not shaking is a challenge in itself! They had to work closely in pairs and use their great teamwork skills in order to create their masterpieces. We were thrilled with their creativity and what they came up with.

Having decided this was definitely harder than it looked, the children were all eager to find extra interesting objects to create more unusual shadows. After scavenging for the best objects outside, the children came in and created some unique pieces of artwork. Looking at the different shadows the objects made, the children had to use some abstract thinking to decide what part of the artwork that shadow could become. Some of the ideas were birds, sharks, avocado dude, and a whole host of little shadow people. The children loved that once the shadow was removed the artwork no longer looked like anything, but could quickly be restored with the correct shadow! Who knew light and shadow could be such fun.