🔦 Torch Shadows
One torch, one wall, and shadows that grow when you step closer.
🔍 Discover·15 min·Free·Ages 1–5·👶 Easy·🧑 Light
⚠️ Safety first
Stay in the room. A small torch, never shone into eyes, and no cords across the floor.
You know your child best — supervise the whole time and skip anything that isn't right for them. See our Terms.
Why this is good for your child
- ✓Cause and effect
- ✓Imagination
What you need
Torch · Bare wall
How to do it
- 1.Turn the lights low and shine a torch at the wall.
- 2.Make a shadow with your hand.
- 3.Move closer and further — watch it grow and shrink.
How it actually goes
- ⏱ 30-second set-up —
- Thirty seconds: put torch, bare wall on a tray or a clear bit of floor, and sit down next to it before you call them over.
- 🧑 What you do —
- Show it once, slowly, without talking over yourself. Then hand it over and stop helping unless they ask.
- 👶 What they do —
- Touch, shake, sort and compare until it makes sense to them.
- ✅ What success looks like —
- At 1–2 they'll tip it out and put nothing back. That's the work — emptying comes long before filling.
- 🧺 How to put it away —
- Everything back into one basket or tray, carried back to its spot by them. Naming the spot out loud is what makes it stick.
- 📈 When they outgrow it —
- Older? Add a blindfold or a guessing round — same thing, harder.