Easy Silhouettes

Every year I do silhouettes of my students during the first week of February.  It continues our discussion of shadows after Groundhog Day is over.  Every year I also get lots of questions about how I make them.  Some folks think I'm really talented... I laugh!  Anyway, today I'm gonna share the easy way to make a gorgeous silhouette without any talent.

All you need is an overhead projector, black and white 12X18 paper and a pencil. I use a little sticky tack to hold the paper on the wall so they are easy to remove and add the next one.

I sit the overhead projector on a table and cast the light on the wall.  I sit a small chair in the light for a child to sit on.  After the child's is sitting I adjust the paper so the child's silhouette is on it.  Adjusting the paper is much easier than adjusting the child.  Encourage the child to not look into the light. I usually give them a focal point in front of them to keep focused on during the procedure.

Next just trace around the outline of the head getting as much of the detail as possible.  Eyelashes and little whisps of hair are pretty easy to trace at this point.  I usually also steady the child's head with my left hand because it is very difficult for them not to lean forward. 

After tracing I cut them out and use glue sticks to attach them to the white paper.  Note: put glue on the side you drew the silhouette on and you will have a clean silhouette as a finished product.

Here are a few more.  I put these up on the wall and then we all try to figure out who is who.  The children are amazing at this.  They recognize their friends easily. We also refer back to the silhouettes during president's week later in February.  I'll tell you all about that in another post later this month.  

Graphing

Let me start by saying: "HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY"... now on to the post!

I love to graph in the classroom.  We often keep graphs up for the children to refer back to for as long as they seem interested. When teaching children it is important to be intentional in almost every aspect of the school day.  Children under 5 are soaking up everything and the best part is they don't know they are learning, they are just having fun through play (if we are doing our job correctly).

Graphing encourages prewriting, math, language and much more.  Here are a few simple graphs to show you what I'm talking about.

The above graph is "What's your favorite color?" We usually do this graph at the beginning of the year.  It gives us opportunity to talk about colors and then to make everyone feel special because they get their names written up there for all to see.  It's also the beginning of them recognizing their own name in print and before long they recognize the names of all their friends too.  The chart below is another example of this.  It's imortant for children to get comfortable talking in the classroom in front of the other children.  Talking about their pets or a pet they would like to have always gets the talking started.  For some children this is very easy but for other children it can be almost painful.  Talking about pets draws these latter children out and they begin to feel confident in sharing.  Notice that the chart does run left to right just like reading a book. That's intentional.

We also do a lot of cooking in the classroom and often times we'll chart yes and no answers.  For instance, in January it was cold and we used Maurice Sendak's book Chicken Soup with Rice and made some chicken soup with rice to warm up on a chilly day.  The chart just asked "Did you like the chicken soup with rice?" and the children made their mark under "yes" or "no".  We then tallied their marks to see if more or less people liked the soup.  This time it ended up being most.  We usually always add up responses and ask the "which is more, which is less" question. 

Today is Groundhog Day so yesterday we graphed whether or not we thought Phil would see his shadow.

 This graph did not run left to right but top to bottom and there is a reason for that.  I had each child write their own name on the white board and had they run left to right they would have most likely rubbed another child's name off.  It was important for that not to happen but equally important for the children to feel confident that they could write their own name for everyone to see.  They all worked slowly and carefully and were very proud of their results.  We finished off the activity by adding up both sides and this year we have a tie.  The children did a super job and I could not have been more proud!!

I hope that you are having fun graphing in the classroom.

More Groundhog Day

This is just a follow-up post to the last one.  If today was Groundhog Day instead of tomorrow then I would be sad to say that it looks like 6 more weeks of Winter!  Aren't our little groundhogs cute?  The groundhogs weren't the only ones who enjoyed seeing their shadows today.

The children had such a great time playing outside, it was the most gorgeous day!! It's hard to believe that people all around the country are experiencing the cold and snow on days like this.  We Floridians are truly blessed (until July and August that is!)

Here's one of our favorite songs this week.  I'm not sure where the song originally came from.

 Sung to the tune of I'm a little teapot.

Here's a little groundhog, furry and brown.

He's coming up to look around.

If he sees his shadow, down he'll go!

Then six more weeks of Winter! OH NO!!

For the song we make one hand into an open fist and place the other hand inside.  Raise up a thumb for the little groundhog as he looks around and pretend he sees his shadow and quickly pop your thumb back down into the fist. The children yell out "Oh No". Very cute!

In my last post I explained about a little Science project we do with shadows. Here's what we did.

We taped dark colored construction paper to plastic trays.  These trays are going outside and it was a very windy day so the tape was a necessity.  We would not have needed it on a calm day but we rarely have those around here.

The children then wandered around the classroom to find something that they could put on the paper.  It seems that hearts were very popular today. 

Put the trays outside in full sunlight and then keep an eye on them to see what happens.

After about an hour we moved the items off the paper and voila, we have shadows on our paper.

What we learned from this project:

• Foam hearts ARE NOT heavy enough to stay put when a strong wind blows
• Blocks and plastic toys ARE heavy enough to stay in place on the paper
• Objects on the paper that are not totally flat cast their own shadows (which is not conducive to shadow art)
• objects on the paper block the sun from reaching the paper underneath
• Sunlight fades paper
• The sun is not always in the same position when we are looking for it (we will discuss why later)
• Additionally, talked about each object on the paper individually and described it's purpose, color, weight and size.

Groundhog Day is Coming

February is such a fun month.  Groundhog Day which is one of my favorite times of the year in the classroom begins the month.  Children love exploring their shadows and the shadows of objects outside.  If you lay different shaped objects on dark construction paper outside (easy to do in sunny Florida) and leave it for an hour then you get shadow prints. Letting  children pick the object they lay on their paper is fun because afterward they can let the other children guess what their object was.  We use different shaped blocks, combs, small plastic skeletons (left over from halloween) and anything else the children find in the classroom and want to use.  I'll try to get a photo of one of these awesome pieces of art so you can see how cool they are.

 Graphing whether or not Punxsutawney Phil, the great Groundhog Day Prognosticator, will see his shadow is a great math experience.  Let children choose whether they think the groundhog will see his shadow or not and add to the graph and then encourage them to survey other staff members and add that to your graph.  Have the children and their parents listen to the radio before coming to school the next morning (Groundhog Day) and have them announce whether the groundhog saw his shadow or not.  Children get so excited when they hear the answer on the radio. 

The children also really enjoy making little groundhog stick puppets and planting them outside in the grass on a sunny day. It wasn't very sunny when I took this photo of all our little groundhogs poking up from the ground.

We monitor and mark where the groundhog shadows fall at different times during the morning.  The children are amazed to see their groundhog's shadow move even though the little guy is still standing in the same place.  You can use any groundhog image and let the children decorate it and glue it firmly to a popsicle stick. In the photo you can see that there are a few groundhogs up against the building.  I do  not put stipulations on where they put their groundhog, we learn as much from the groundhogs "in the shade" as we do the ones in the sun. 

Did you know that groundhogs are also called woodchucks, whistle pigs and marmots?