DIY SHADOW PLAY MATERIALS

My son loves vehicles – it is one of his ultimate favorites. No matter how it’s presented – as a toy, a book, a puzzle, etc — he always gets drawn to vehicles.

I thought of making this activity because we had our Melissa and Doug reusable stickers for a while now, and we loved using it for its purpose: sticking. After a while though, they don’t stick anymore.

I was told to wipe it with wet cloth, but I got more excited at the thought of reusing it for shadow play because the sticker paper is also perfect for cutting and shaping.

What I needed:

  • Melissa and Doug reusable stickers (aff link)
  • Xacto Knife (aff link) – I love using this blade for paper cutting
  • Used barbeque sticks – you can use whatever you have – toothpicks, popsicle sticks, etc. I reused the ones we’ve used for other projects before to save on materials. You might need to use more than one stick in some vehicles (the wide ones)
  • Tape – to tape the stick

After working hard on cutting these, we have our shadow play vehicles!

Of course, to use this, you need to be somewhere dark and have a flashlight.

Enjoy your DIY!

 

PS: If you don’t have this set, that’s alright. You can search for free printables of vehicle shadows online. Just print then cut whatever you can with your blade like the windows, the inner doors, etc to create clearer shadows.

PPS: Normally, in Montessori, you match the shadow with another thing – whether the same shadow, or maybe a toy bus and a shadow of the bus, or a photo of a bus and a photo of the shadow of the bus. Since my son really loves vehicles though, he knows them by heart. He does his own matching himself – like he would get his toy bus and put it alongside the bus we use for shadow play. But at night, we just play with it as is. We make stories, we sing songs, we have a “guess this vehicle” game. So it’s really up to you and your child to enjoy this material. You know your child best, after all. Have fun!

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