Tag Archives: light

Have you ever seen a chinese lantern?

Chinese lanterns are made of paper and are used to decorate a home during Chinese New Year.

What’s Chinese New Year?

Chinese new year celebrates the end of the lunar cycle. The lunar cycle is the oldest calender in the world but it’s not too reliable because the day for Chinese New Year changes every year!

Why do people light lanterns?

People light lanterns on Chinese New Year as a way to celebrate family members coming home for the lunar festival. It is believed that lighting the lanterns will help people know how to get home, because if it was dark they could get lost!

The lanterns are lit when the first full moon occurs, this makes sure everyone knows the new year has begun!

Did you know?

That the Chinese lanterns are a symbol of harmony and unity, a value the Chinese hope will stay in the hearts of everyone for the whole year ahead!

Light can play tricks on your eyes! Here’s a fast and fun activity that you can do to trick your friends!

bent or straight?

What you’ll need:

- a pencil

- water

- a clear glass jar (like an empty pasta jar)

How to do it:

1) Fill half your glass jar with water

2) Place the pencil in the water

3) Look at the pencil from the top

4) Look at the pencil from the side

When you look at it from the top it looks straight but when you look at it from the side its bent!

Why does it do this?

Its the light playing tricks on your eyes! You see light travels through water slower than it travels through air. When the light hits the water it slows down making the pencil look bent, but when the light travels through air it speeds up making the pencil look straight!

Light helps us to see in the dark and sun light helps plants and animals to grow up big and strong too!

Here’s a fun activity you can do to learn about how light and objects have three different relationships.

What you’ll need:

- A torch

- lots of different objects from around the house: your teddy bear, books, toys, anything!

What to do:

Shine the torch through the objects to see if the light shines through it.

If the light shines through you have a transparent (pronounced trans – parent) object, but if the light doesn’t shine through the object is called opaque (pronounced o – pake ) Sometimes you’ll find an object that will let a little bit of light through and thats know as a translucent ( trans – loo – cent ).

These 3 levels are known as different kinds of transparency (trans – parin – see)

Shine the light through your hand, what kind of transparency does your hand have?

Have fun!