We are nearing the end of Calvert 1st grade, so we decided to knock out the last two chapters in our science book with a dedicated Science Week! So far we have explored position and force and simple machines and magnets. Then we started investigating the different types of energy: first heat and then sound.
It's the last day of Science Week! Just as heat and sound are types of energy, so is light! Light is the form of energy that allows us to see.
Some materials let a lot of light pass through them. Other materials block out light completely. Miss M tried a few materials to see what lets light through and what doesn't.
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| Plastic wrap, waxed paper, aluminum foil, an empty paper towel tube, and a rubber band. |
First she covered one end of the tube with plastic wrap and tried looking through it. She could see light! Then she removed the plastic and covered the end of the tube with waxed paper. She could see some light, but not as much as before.
Lastly, she covered the end of the tube with aluminum foil.
Whoa! No light came through at all! She recorded her findings.
How does light help us see? When light hits an object the light bounces off the object and right into our eyes! We wanted to see what bouncing light looks like, so we took a flashlight and a small mirror into the bathroom (there are no windows in there and it gets very dark, even in the middle of the day!)
Miss M shined the flashlight into the mirror and looked around to see where it went when it bounced off the mirror. We stuck a paper target on the wall and tried to aim the light to hit the target!
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| Light bounces off the mirror and hits our paper target. |
Sometimes when light shines through a material, the light can be changed. Miss M and Little Guy took turns shining the flashlight through colored paddles. When the light shone through them, the color of the light was changed!
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| The colors were very pretty! |
We liked the colored lights so much we decided to make our own stained glass window art. Miss M and I each took a piece of black construction paper, folded it up, and cut shapes from it. When we opened it, we had a frame for our stained glass art.
Then we cut small bits of colored cellophane wrap and taped them across the holes on one side. When we flipped the frame over, we could see the pretty colors in the frame!
By the time we finished it was dark outside. Too dark to hang up our pretty artwork and admire the sun shining through. Oh well, we'll hang them up tomorrow and enjoy the colored lights then!
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