MONTESSORI TOY DESIGN

Light It Up!
For Ages 3+

GOAL- What will they learn?

Light It Up! Introduces children to basic principles of light interactivity & color mixing.

DESIGN- How will they come to that conclusion?

Using flashlights with various color / texture filters, the children will shine the light(s) onto a canvas to see the different results in color and pattern. They’ll be able to see how shining a blue and red light onto the same surface turns the paper purple, how different color canvases affect how the lights look, and how the different lights affect different surfaces. There is no right or wrong way to use this toy.

PROCESS- Show us the methodology. What materials worked and why? Did something fail? Surprising?

Josephine and I were inspired by a kid’s flashlight toy we found on the junk shelf. We found a cardboard tube, cut it into thirds, and then found colorful paper/fabric to use for the tops of the flashlights. Because this was just a prototype, we didn’t try to find lightbulbs. We used printer paper for the canvas and drew a simple venn diagram for children to aim the lights at.