Light and Shadows Year 3 Science Worksheets

The whole Year 3 Light unit – light sources, how we see, dark as the absence of light, reflection, sun safety, opaque/translucent/transparent materials and how shadows form and change size – with two Learn It pages, three star-rated worksheets, a shadow investigation with a bar chart, a page on shadows from the Sun, a 10-mark quiz and full answers. Print-ready PDF, 11 pages.

A ready-to-print pack for the Year 3 science unit “Light”, covering every statutory statement.

What’s included (11-page A4 PDF):

• Teacher notes with a page map and the National Curriculum statements
• Learn It: Light – light sources (and why the Moon is not one), how we see, dark, reflection and protecting your eyes
• Learn It: Shadows – a labelled shadow diagram, opaque, translucent and transparent, and how shadows change size
• Sheet 1 (1 star) – Light sources: sort 12 things; is the Moon a light source?; put the steps of seeing a book in order
• Sheet 2 (2 stars) – Reflection and sun safety: rank three surfaces, reflective strips for cyclists, true/false and ways to protect your eyes
• Sheet 3 (3 stars) – Shadows: sort 10 materials; label a shadow diagram (word box with extra words); why tissue paper makes a paler shadow
• Shadow investigation: a results table, a bar chart to draw, the pattern, a prediction and fair testing
• Shadows from the Sun: a stick’s shadow in three pictures – shortest shadow, direction and length
• Quick quiz: 10 one-mark questions
• Full answers

The shadow investigation uses a torch, and the results follow the real geometry of shadows. Answer lines are sized for Year 3 handwriting (about 4 mm per letter). The curriculum warning “it is not safe to look directly at the sun, even when wearing dark glasses” is repeated wherever the Sun appears.

The science is checked against BBC Bitesize KS2 Science (What is light?, What is reflection?, Why are shadows made?, Light and shadows, How does the eye detect light?) and the National Curriculum programme of study.

Name/date line on pupil pages. British English spelling. Clear, dyslexia-friendly font (Andika). Simple original diagrams.

This resource was created with AI assistance (Claude), then fact-checked and proofread in a separate review pass.