Making Sunprints

I had some very old solar paper laying around. It says to use within six months, but we thought it still might be good after six years of sitting on a shelf. Solar paper allows you to record images of shadows. We did this early in the morning in February - the sun was very low in the sky so we got very long shadows. This meant when we first tried to make sunprints of Vivi's blocks, the shadows were so big that they covered the whole paper. So, we went looking for some flatter objects.

We tried lots of different materials for making sunprints. The box of fasteners was by far the most interesting

Laying everything out and looking at the shadows.

When the blue paper turned white, it was time to bring it inside and put it in water.

Finished sunprint after developing in water -- notice how the shadows look 3-D - white areas were where no sun hit and the lighter areas are where the shadows were (but some indirect sunlight hit the paper)

Then Vivi just played with the pieces.

I have read that other people have used solar paper covered in a clear plate (e.g., flat glass baking dish) to show how well different spf's of sunscreen block light. Maybe something to try when Vivi is a bit older.