Phases of the Moon

Moon Phases, what a wonderful thing to learn...

I don't ever remember being taught about the different phases of the moon. I remember learning about Neil Armstrong, and how cool it must have been to actually walk on the moon. I wasn't alive when that amazing moment took place but I can only imagine after reading through all the stories and seeing all of the pictures how miraculous that moment in time must have been. I hope my children got as much out of reading Neil Armstrong's biography as I did. I totally recommend all of the Who Was Series books by Roberta Edwards they are great books. Now lets get to the really fun part, and that's learning the Moon Phases. 

It's incredible all that we can learn about the moon. I never even realized they have a page in the newspaper that charts the 28 day cycle of the moon phases as well as when the moon rises and sets.

Here you see how we explored part of God's day 4 of creation, Giving us the Sun, Moon, and Stars. You can find great information on that at Children's ministry resources. It turned out to be another great free resource packed full of information, as well as crafts. 

As the children read I had them hold up a picture of what they were reading about, so everyone could see it. This set of Montessori cards is from ETC Montessori, and they offer it as a free download. I laminated all of our cards and charts so they would last longer and be easier to work with.

Of course we couldn't do the moon phases with out food being involved. These Oreo's are a favorite of the boy's, so I thought "why not make learning fun".

Here are a couple of pictures of how I set up for the  table for the kids to start learning the phases.

The Moon chart in the top left corner can also be found at ETC Montessori. 

We have followed the paper each week in tracking the moon rise and have gone outside on several occasions to get a look first hand at the moons phase. 

In the end, we ate the moon's (smile)

Craft Time

I found this craft activity at I heart crafty things and knew it would be perfect for our Moon unit. 

This was super easy, after tracing a circle onto your paper, add a little flour to white paint, paint the moon, take a water bottle in a circular motion add more texture. then allow it to dry. When it's dry draw stars or add star stickers to your picture. Voila a masterpiece.

The older boys drew their own stars with a white colored pencil.

Little B added star stickers to his moon picture. 

 Moon painting's were the perfect way for us to end our moon unit. 

If you are interested in a few other moon books that we enjoyed, check out Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me  and Planets, Moons, & Stars. 

I hope you come back to check out our Astronaut Sensory Play for this Unit. It was out of this world.

You can check out some other great learning activities on my Pinterest page Science.

I would love to hear how your family learned about the moon. Feel free to leave me a comment or join me on Facebook so we can chat. 

If you missed out on Part 1 and Part 2, here is an easy way to click back over and check out all of the Solar System activities we have done. 

 

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