Having fun with indoor rainbows; making hand shadows and playing with cardboard cut outs in the sun; Working out how to make a hand shadow dog…and something eating grass.
289 – More fun with hand shadows
Tuesday 18 March. Sunny. 11°C
We’re at a bit of a loose end and searching round for a challenge. It’s a beautiful early spring day with lots of sunshine but we can’t find anything to collect and are out of ideas. I’ve been meaning to try again with shadows (see 335 below) for ages. We google options on the phone (hardly the best nature play but hey, needs must) and have a go at recreating what we find. There’s a cute bear cub one we both really want to do but neither of us can get it to work. The wolfs and dog heads are easier and we have fun with those. Then we work out we can use the grass to make them look like they’re chewing. We’re not sure what… I think it’s a dog but when the grass disappears it becomes a rabbit.
I’m feeling a bit more on top of hand shadows now. The sort of thing that’s useful on a lazy day when you have lots of time and nothing to do. The grass eating was really fun and I want to play with that more. Somewhere in the house we’ve got an old book, from when I was little, of how to make them. I plan to dig it out and put it with the camping things.
288 – Finding the frogspawn has turned into tadpoles >
335 – School yard shadows
Friday 31 January. Sunny, 7°C
It’s a gorgeous sunny Friday and it feels like Spring is coming. After a week focusing on birds (see Bird Challenge week 339-336) and occasionally getting cross about it, it felt like we needed an easy fun challenge and the weather is really helping. There are long shadows and the potential for fun. I turn up at the school gates with a 335 cardboard cut out ready made and see what B can do with it. It takes her a while to work out how to hold it away and get the sun to shine through it.
I challenge her friends to do shadows – they all do butterflies. A grandad comes up with an amazing dog and says he used to be able to do an elephant. I think we might need to do a bit of a training session before we do this one again.
Beach combing in the winter with kids (333) >
< Bird challenge week (339-336, 334)
364 – Indoor Rainbow
Thursday 2 January. Dry and cloudy. 10°C
Its getting towards the end of the Christmas holidays and we’re travelling home after a week staying with various relatives. In between the rushing – the shortest challenge. I’m still working out if this is cheating but it was definitely a natural event even if it was inside. The light caught the glass of the balcony and sent a rainbow inside onto the white door.
B puts her hands in it first, then her feet. We try shadow puppets. She can do a bird and a rabbit.
Afterwards I wonder what else we could have done. Maybe we could have got some glass or a mirror and seen if we could reflect it? B drew a 364 on a bit of paper, cut it out and took a photo with the rainbow on it. Then we headed off to catch a train feeling energised and positive.
It will not be the longest challenge we do but on the second day of our endeavours it was a lovely piece of luck. Like the world was smiling on us and helping us along.
