I discovered this idea from the Quirky Momma on Pinterest... and had to give it a try.
Definitely check out her site. Her pictures and explanations are much better than mine. I loved this idea because it was simple. We don't typically play with our magnets outside, so my little guy was pretty excited.
He put letters and shapes on different types and colors of paper. We wanted to test out which types of paper and which colors worked best for this little sun experiment.
Then we let everything hang out in the bright sun while we headed to church.
When we got home we ran outside to check things out. The shape puzzles on the super cheap construction paper worked the best.
The ones on the brown cardstock worked OK... the ones on the pink paper were barely visible. You could tell which direction the sun had been shining based on the imprints that were left.
Fun Frugal Mommy also tried this with sight words. I want to try it with our names next... on the cheap paper of course 🙂 I love it when my little guy and I are equally as excited about an activity.
Once we were done with the sun bleaching process, we matched the magnet shapes and letters to the sunbleached papers. We'll be trying this one again soon.
This activity gives kids an opportunity to...
- connect letters with their names and sounds (we talk about the sounds as we match each letter)
- spend time looking at letters and learning to recognize their similarities and differences
- talk about words related to the letters (we discuss which words relate to each letter- d is for daddio)
- do a little experimenting with the sun 🙂
- talk about shapes, how many sides they have, and their colors
- match letters and shapes
We did this with cheap construction paper and sunscreen. I got a cheap tube from the Dollar Tree and we painted with it and then put them in the sun. It was a great lesson on why we should wear sunscreen!! 😀
I love sun prints. I do this a few times each year. We did it with letters during our chicka chicka boom boom week. We also do it with shapes, names, sight words and items from nature (you have to roll up a tiny piece of tape to hold leaves down). We end the year with a guessing game. I give each child a paper lunch bag and have them select objects from the classroom – rulers, scissors, food from dramatic play, plastic animals, etc. Before the kids arrive, I tape different size papers to a table outside and cover it with a blanket. After the kids select their items, I move the table into the sun and remove the blanket. The kids then place one item onto each piece of paper. We leave these alone until afternoon, then the kids help remove the objects and place them in a box. We take the sun-prints off and the kids try to match the sun-prints with the items in the box. They love it! You can even laminate the sun prints and take photos of the items if you want to keep this around a while! Be sure the kids do not choose crayons as they will melt lol. Yep, its happened and I missed it lol!