Dark & Light

In this theme, children were learning about colors, shadows and reflections. We discussed what they know about shadow, how they move, what makes a shadow and the same with reflections. We discussed about light, natural source of light (such as sun, star, moon, lightning) and man made source of light (such as electricity, lamp, light bulb, flash light, fire on candle). At the end, we made a venn diagram on shadow vs reflection. We also discussed colors, different name for color. When we read "Red: The crayon story," we assigned a specific color to each child and every day, think of something that were specific to that color. Then we had a discussion about things that they're good at and things that were hard for them (based on the experience of Red).
​To support all the interaction in this theme, our pretend center transformed into a movie theater where children can sell tickets, candies, popcorn and play movies on a projector. There's also light table where children had discussion about things that were transparent and things that were opaque. At the art table, children drew their self-portrait using a mirror and they made shadow puppets to play in the dark basement.
​At the writing center, they wrote all the movie tittles, play with matching colors to words, matching 3d shapes cards and they did "Letter Detective Report" where they looked around the classroom for words that begins with the letter on the paper.
​Most children said "good" for flavor they like, so while we learned letter L, we decided to have a "Taste Test," to add more vocabularies to their knowledge. So we used lemon (sour), lollipop (sweet), lays chips (salty), lava chocolate (100% coco-bitter). Check out the expression on their face!

The letters we learned this theme are ...

The books we read this theme are ...