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.  

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.