Light Exploration ~ Educational Fun for Kids

I believe real education is the lighting of a fire not the filling of a bucket. This kind of learning creates a glow in our house that is quite literal when it comes to learning about light. 

Light exploration involves anything glowing that little children can touch. The opportunities for play and learning with light are as broad as your imagination. Any activity becomes more appealing when it glows. A light table is great to have just because it gives you a bright flat surface to paint on, build on, sort on, and write on.

We added a second-hand overhead projector to our collection. It’s great for shadow puppets. Water beads, dollar-store treasures, x-rays, and homemade creations have also enhanced our exploration. We were having so much fun!

Then a problem crept up on us. I noticed the kids would wait to play with all our glowing goodies until after the sun went down. Naturally it was more fun in the dark. But with the days getting longer outside, the light table started gathering dust.

What to do? A curtain, maybe? That didn’t work. Finally inspiration struck. I moved our light exploration to a little closet we have under our staircase.

This little nook we now call our light room. In our light room it’s dark as night when the lights are off. So it’s the perfect place for light exploration any time of the day. The door to the closet is miniature—something my kids love. It’s their own glowing secret hideaway.

Your kiddos will love a light room of their own. All you need to get you started is a dark closet to dedicate to the purpose.

Then little by little you can stock you light room with goodies. Here’s a look at some things that have been big hits in our light room. Most things were free or cost very little. 

* Cut up dividers and line with masking tape to make glowing shapes that teach color mixing and shape identification.

* Collect specimens from nature like leaves, feathers, and butterfly wings and preserve them between sheets of contact paper. Now your budding naturalists can study and classify with a little illumination.

* The dollar store is a treasure trove! Anything with transparent color will be fun in your light room. Buy plastic jewels for sorting and counting, colored shot glasses for building towers, kaleidoscopes for inspection, larger plastic containers for projecting masses of color. I find something fun for the light room almost every time I go to the dollar store.

* Water beads are found on the floral aisle at Walmart for a couple bucks and are great for sensory play. They literally glow on the light table.

* If you’re wiling to spend a little money online, there are great light room materials available from transparent letters to sturdy building blocks. We love Magnatiles.

* X-rays can often be obtained for free from doctors and veterinarians and offer a wide range of learning opportunities.

* Get an old lamp and put a black light in it. Gather white and neon items in your house for exploration. Tonic water can be found at any grocery store and glows under a black light. Neon paint and pastels can be found at hobby stores for your children to create glowing artwork for the light room wall. We even found rocks as the local rock show that glow under our black light.

 * Secondhand stores are great places to find light room accessories. We’ve purchased fun plastic containers, a light-up aquarium, and a glowing spinning globe light at ours. Mirrors of all kinds are can be found inexpensively at second-hand stores and greatly enhance the fun in the light room.