Exploring Sunshine & Shadows

Watch the video Elmo’s Wonderful World: Sun then do the activities below.

Day and Night

Do this easy experiment to demonstrate how the spinning of the Earth toward and away from the sun creates day and night.

• Find a flashlight and a ball or globe
• Have your child hold a ball or globe to represent the Earth.
• Shine a flashlight on the globe and say “daytime” with your child.
• Have your child turn around so the globe is in the shadow of the child and no longer has light on it and say “nighttime.”
• Do this several times as the child spins around. If you don’t have a ball or globe, put a sticker on the child’s shirt and use this as the place to shine the flashlight.

Draw your Shadow

Draw your shadow (or an object’s shadow) and come back later to see if it moves

• Go outside in the morning on a sunny day.
• Find a place where you can trace your child(ren)’s shadow such as with chalk on a sidewalk or with a stick in the dirt.
• Mark an X where the child was standing.
• Come back in the afternoon and see where the shadow is now. Has it moved? If so, have your child stand on the X and trace the new shadow.
• You can come back at specific intervals during the day (every couple of hours) to see how the shadow has moved.