25+ Learning Activities About Light for Pre-K to Second Grade

Inside: A fun collection of 25+ learning activities about light for Pre-K to third grade, with accompanying picture book suggestions to use in your investigation.

Today we’re sharing a super cool list of light activities for use in your next learning investigation. From fireflies to the sun and moon, torch play to glow sticks, we’ve got experiments and activity suggestions for exploring all different sources of light.

These light activities are perfect for teachers, early learning educators and parents who would like to incorporate this fun, learning theme into their classrooms and homes.

25+ Learning Activities About Light for Pre-K to Second Grade

Learning About the Light of Fireflies

1. Start With a Book Inspired Brainstorm: Eric Carle’s The Very Lonely Firefly is actually a great starting point for this theme as the firefly finds different sources of light while looking for it’s friends.

Before reading the book with students, start by brainstorming a list of as many different sources of light that the children can think of? Record their responses in a collaborative mind map, or invite independent writers to create individual or small group mind maps.

Once complete, share the story of The Very Lonely Firefly.

2. Firefly Drawing: My class of 5 year olds recently made fantastic firefly pictures inspired by The Lonely Firefly book. They began by cutting a small piece of shiny paper to represent the lit up end of the firefly’s abdomen, and then drawing on the rest of its body, head and wings, and then decorating the night sky black background. I was surprised at how effective regular colored pencils looked on black paper.

Shadows, Light & Color Activities

Explore the interactions of shadows, light and color with these fun activity ideas.

3. Shadow Shapes: Children are fascinated by their shadow and their are lots of cool activities that you can do related to making shadows! Children can work in pairs or small groups to make super cool body shapes and then tracing the shadows with chalk (via Tinkerlab).

4. Shadow Drawing: Or, on a smaller scale, this Lego Shadow Drawing from Innovation Kids Lab could be adapted to use all sorts of toys or natural materials to make interesting shadow drawings.

5. Book Link: Looking for a shadow book to explore? Read The Shapes of Me and Other Stuff by Dr Seuss together.

6. Shadow Puppets: Divide students into groups and have a go at making own shadow puppets and putting on puppet show (via ALSC blog).

7. Colored Shadows: For the ultimate WOW! moment, why not make coloured shadows with this tutorial from Inner Child Fun.

8. Rainbow Filters: Explore colour filters with light from the sun with this simple Kandinsky inspired art project.

9. Catch the Sun: Make Cosmic Sun Catchers with Babble Dabble Do.

10. DIY Kaleidoscopes (plus more color and light explorations): In our ebook, Rainbows & Kaleidoscopes, you will find a DIY Kaleidoscope craft alongside 24 other STEM activities exploring color and light.

Day & Night: Light Activities Exploring the Sun, Moon & Stars

Continue your exploration of light with the most marvelous lights in our sky – the sun, moon and stars! Here are some fun ways to explore their wonder together…

11. Day and Night Around the World Experiment: Introduce the concept of day and night around the world with this simple demonstration from Learn Play Imagine. All you’ll need is a globe and a torch.

12. Pizza Box Oven: If it is warm and sunny where you are, test the warmth of the sun with a pizza box oven (this one via I Can Teach My Child).

13. Sun Melting Experiment: You can also test what melts in the sun (via Frugal Fun 4 Boys & Girls).

14. Sun Melted Rainbow Crayons: Or try recycling your broken crayons by making sun melted crayons (via No Time for Flashcards).

15. Star Search: Be inspired to catch a star by reading the awesome How To Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers and then make your own star shaped Cheese Puffs for morning or afternoon tea.

16. Starry Night Creations: There are so many children’s art ideas inspired by Van Gogh’s Starry Night but these Starry Night Playdough Creations (via Early Years Down Under on Facebook) are my absolute favorite. You can also see their fabulous group collage here.

17. Book link: Support your student’s interest in Van Gogh’s famous painting with the book, Katie and the Starry Night by James Mayhew.

Torch Light Activities

18. Fun By Torchlight: A fun way to revise reading sight words or spelling words is to make the room dark and hide the words (written on cards) all around the room. Then armed with torches, children can go searching and exploring, reading the words as they shine the torch on them. Find out more at A Little Learning for Two.

19. Book Link: Read the wonderfully clever picture book Flashlight by Lizi Boyd.

20. Take Your Pencil for a Walk: Inspired by the book, Flashlight, draw pictures with white and colored pencils or crayons on black paper of what you might see on a walk in the dark.

Glow Sticks Fun

21. Disco Discovery Bottles: Design your own disco discovery bottles (via Babble Dabble Do) or Glow in the Dark Sensory Bottles.

22. Glow Alphabet: Make letters from glow sticks and use them to play a letter recognition game, or to form sight words or spelling words.

RELATED: For more like this, check out our collection of 50 pages of Hands-On Alphabet Learning Activities.

Lantern Light Activities

23. DIY Lanterns: There are lots of ideas for making pretty lanterns – I suggest you try these gorgeous tissue paper covered jars (via Picklebums)

24. Recycled Bottle Lanterns: Or these simple to decorate lanterns from recycled bottles (Go Explore Nature).

25. Fairy Garden: Battery operated tea lights are much safer for projects with children. I love how My Small Potatoes has used them to create this gorgeous Fairy Garden Small World in a basket.

Fairy Lights

26. Just for Fun: Add a little magic to your classroom by decorating it with fairy lights for the week.  You could even create a cosy book reading corner from a tent or large cardboard box. Check out this post from Lessons Learnt Journal for inspiration.

27: Book Link: Use the brightly lit toyhouse in children’s classic, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, as inspiration to create your own lighted dollhouses with fairy lights (via The Artful Parent).

28. Write About Light: Check out these fabulous, free, printable writing prompts inspired by the theme LIGHT!