Sun Catcher Alarms & Folk Tale Shadow Puppets or Light Shows
This STEM Unit is based on the science of the sun, moon, and stars, focusing on how light creates shadows and colors, and story telling tall tales using flashlights or projectors (modelling the sun) to present their tall tales.
Second grade will integrate science with math by building a device that uses light and shadow to record time. Second grade will integrate science with ELA by reading several tall tales, and then writing original tall tales about how the sun, moon
, stars, seasons, or crops came to be. Students will write scripts for their originall tall tales instoryboards in Computer Lab, and then presenting some form of a light show, either shadow puppet show, or light show through animation, or other light based show. Second grade will integrate science with social studies by extending our study of Jimmy Carter to his farming techniques, based on seasonal changes, and sunlight. We will survey plant needs for more or less sunlight, as well as seasonal planting, and companion crops based on sunlight requirements. As part of that sunlight requirement, some classes may explore how many plants per square foot may be planted based on crop type, for example 1 tomato plant fits in 1 square foot, while 32 radish plants fit in the same square foot of space.
Using the Sun (and other things) to Tell Time
A Brief History of Time Measurement https://nrich.maths.org/6070
Folk Tales
Why the sun and the moon live in the sky
African Folktale
The journey of the sun and the moon - Slavic Folktale
http://www.worldoftales.com/European_folktales/Slavic_fairy_tale_8.html
How the Sun was Rescued
A Siberian Tale
http://www.windows2universe.org/art_and_music/hsr.html
How to Do Shadow Puppets
Constructing a theater box for shadow puppetry
http://www.instructables.com/id/Basic-Shadow-Puppets/ (Instructable - "how to")
Example Pictures of how to do shadow puppets with your hands and arms
Whole webpage with videos, devoted to shadow puppetry with your hands
15 more examples of shadow puppetry with your hands
http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/galleries/266-hand-shadow-puppetry
Actual Stage Performance of "Hand Shadow" Raymond Crowe at Royal Variety Show