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Includes statements from Development Matters (birth to age five) and the relevant ELGs in full, for the Dark den provocation
Early Learning Goal links
- Understanding the World ELG: Past and Present
- Understanding the World ELG: People, Culture and Communities
- Understanding the World ELG: The Natural World
- Expressive Arts and Design ELG: Creating with Materials
Characteristics of effective learning
Play, Be, C Units provide enabling environments with teaching and support from adults. Reflecting on the characteristics of effective teaching and learning, children will have opportunity to learn and develop by:
- Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.
- Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achievements.
- Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework: accessed November 2024. Available under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
What you will need
- A dark den – you can make this with a thick, dark blanket
- Torches
- A variety of lights and materials to investigate such as light up toys, glow sticks, UV lights, opaque, translucent and transparent objects and materials
- You could use the lantern from the lanterns adult led activity here.
- Dark den moods and feelings provocation
- Dark den weather provocation
- The lighting technician poster
Duration
- 10 – 20 minutes to build and set up your dark den
- 10 minutes or so.
STEM vocabulary to introduce
Light, dark, shadow, source, block, change, shape, travel, long, short, big, small, straight, solid (opaque), see-through (transparent), translucent (you can see light through it but not clear shapes) colours- bright, dim, fuzzy, clear
What to do
Set up the dark den with the materials you would like the children to investigate. You could use the lighting technician poster. Tell the children that they are going to be lighting technicians and they are going to collaborate to observe what happens when they investigate the different materials. Tell the children they are going to create different moods, feelings and effects with the lights, just like lighting technicians do.
Questions to ask to support and extend learning
- Can you test the resources one at a time?
- What happens with each one? What does it look like in the dark den?
- What happens in you use two together?
- Which colours can you see?
- Are they bright or dim?
- Can you make them brighter? Can you make them dimmer?
- Can you explain to me how you did that?
- Can you use anything to make shadows?
- Which objects make the best shadows? Which make the worst? Why?
- Can you make your shadows bigger or smaller? Can you explain to me how you did that?
Remember to refer to the children as lighting technicians and praise them for using the attributes. You could say things like:
“I love the way you have collaborated with your friends to create that effect…!”
“You have been really creative in the way you have used the lights…”
Other things to try – different feelings and moods
You could read “The Colour Monster” by Anna Llenas. Ask the children to choose their own moods and feeling provocation and create the lighting for the colour monsters.
- Can you make the dark den the colour of happiness/sadness/anger/fear/calm?
- Are the lights be bright or dim?
- Are they flashing? Quickly or slowly?
- Are there shadows?
- Can you explain to me how you created the lighting for the colour monster?
- Can you create the lighting for the pink colour monster? What is this feeling?
Other things to try – different weather
You could read “Maisy’s Wonderful Weather Book” by Lucy Cousins. Ask the children to choose their own weather provocation and create the lighting for the colour monsters.
- Can you make the dark den the colour of a sunny/snowy/rainy/windy/stormy day?
- Are the lights be bright or dim?
- Are they flashing? Quickly or slowly?
- Are there shadows?
- Can you explain to me how you created the lighting for the that type of weather?
- Can you create the lighting for a day with a rainbow?
You could challenge the children to create the lighting for different stories you have read together.
The science of lighting technicians
We have put together some useful information about the science of lighting technicians to accompany this activity. Don’t worry, this is for your information only and to help you answer any questions children may have. We don’t expect you to explain this to the children in your setting!
Why are some lights different colours?
The light we see is made up of the different colours of the spectrum, these are the colours of the rainbow. Most coloured lights used these days are LEDs – light-emitting diodes – a device that produces light from electricity. LEDs are red, green or blue. In a colour-changing LED there are red, green or blue diodes within the same bulb casing. When all three diodes are switched on at full capacity, white light is produced. Just like colour mixing with paint, LEDs can mix the coloured light to make different shades. Turning on the red and blue diodes creates magenta, red and green make yellow, and blue and green produces cyan.
How did you make that shadow?
Shadows are made by blocking light. Light rays travel from a source in straight lines. If an opaque (solid) object gets in the way, it stops light rays from travelling through it. An opaque object absorbs the light. This results in an area of darkness appearing behind the object. This is a shadow!
Why do some materials let the light through?
Some of the materials you used are transparent – we could see through them and they let all of the light through them. Examples are clear plastic, cellophane, water and glass.
Some of the materials you used are translucent. This is when materials absorbs part of the light but allows part of the light through. The light that travels through the material is scattered so that you cannot see clearly through the material. Examples are tissue paper and frosted glass.
For both transparent and translucent materials, if your material looked green, it only let green light through and absorbed all the other coloured light. If your material was red, it only let red light through and so on.
How do I make shadows bigger and smaller?
To make a shadow grow bigger, move the object you are using closer to the light source. will get fuzzier in appearance too. To make a shadow grow smaller and sharper, move the object further away from the light source.
