Summary

Allow students to create familiar and new hand shadow shapes and explore how the position of hands in relation to the light source changes the size of the shadow.

Materials

• White wall in a room that can be darkened
• Bright flashlight
• Printout of dinosaur and pterosaur silhouettes, created by hand shadows (1.29MB)

Related Video Clip

Dinosaur Train: Hornucopia (29 seconds)

Procedures

1. Ask students if they've ever made hand shadows before. Let them demonstrate any hand shadows they already know, such as a dog barking, or a bird flying.
2. Show a video clip (above) from the end of "Hornucopia" in which the characters use moonlight to create shadows of different Mesozoic creatures.
3. Give each student a copy of the printout for making 4 dinosaur hand shadows. First have students try to form the hand shapes without using the flashlight.
4. Turn off the lights, except for a flashlight. Have students put their hands in between the flashlight and the wall, and make the hand shadows on the printout: a Pteranodon flying, a Stegosaurus walking, a Triceratops' head, and a sideview of a T. rex.
5. Have students explore pictures of other dinosaurs, such as those in the Field Guide, and come up with their own hand shadows.
6. Have fun experimenting with the distance between the hands and the flashlight. Ask students to figure out how they need to position their hands to make the images smaller or bigger. They could discover that the closer their hands are to the light source, the bigger the image on the wall.

Extensions

1. Students can create a hand shadow play featuring the Mesozoic animals from the printable page, as well as those they invent themselves. They can discuss the best way to use their hands to create different features such as horns, tails, teeth and so on.
2. To see examples of professional hand shadow artists, help children search the Internet for video clips.