Blogger / 3 September, 2025 / Nanny Anita

Coloured Shadows – An Experiment With Light

Have you ever been somewhere where they have 3 different coloured lights up that create multi coloured shadows? I first came across it at the Garden area in the Science Museum.  These coloured shadows are pretty cool and a fun way to do puppet shows.  For older children you can turn it into a science experiment.

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To make your own coloured shadows you will need:

• Magnetic tiles or coloured lens in red, green, and blue
• Torches
• A white wall to project onto
• Puppets or things to put in front of the lights.

I set this up in NC’s room and we used it to act out our nursery rhymes.  I either used little objects that could represent things in the songs.  We used some little emotion birds from learning resource to represent 5 Little Ducks, some small toiletry bottles to do 10 Green Bottles.  Then I had some animal stencils that I used for different versions of 5 Little Monkeys and Nellie the Elephant.  NC loves nursery rhymes, so this was a fun way to elevate them.

For Older Children

For older children you can not only do puppet shows but look at some of the science behind it.  Here are some ideas of what you could explore:

1. How are shadows made.
2. What happens when you use different combinations of the lights to create the shadows.
3. Put a card with a hole in it in front of the lights and see what happens.
4. What happens when you use different coloured backdrops.

For the science behind it I highly recommend that you check out the Exploratorium.

If you enjoyed this coloured shadow activity, be sure to check out my Nursery rhyme puppets, Lego wind racers, and inflating a balloon with science experiment.

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