Materials
Dark-colored construction paper
Collection of classroom objects, such as scissors, crayons, blocks
Sunlight
Instructions
1. As the children are seated for circle time, discuss the collection of objects in relation to their shapes.
2. Ask each child to select a few items and place them on a dark-colored piece of construction paper.
3. Encourage the children to predict what will happen to the construction paper when it is placed in the direct sunlight.
4. Put these papers with the objects on them in direct sunlight. This can be done indoors by a window in the direct sun, or outdoors.
5. After a few minutes, the children can remove the objects to discover what happened to the paper.
6. Discuss why the shapes of the objects remain on the paper even though the objects have been removed (the sunlight faded the paper). Compare the results to the children's predictions.More to doMore art: Without the children, prepare different prints and have the children guess what objects were used to make those prints.More science: Do this activity during different seasons of the year and discover why it takes longer for the print to appear in winter than in summer.
