Students create a moon phases book using paper plates to model each phase.
This animation shows an image for each specific phase of the moon.
Students will learn about and track the phases of the moon
Students will draw the moon's shape for each evening on a calendar and then determine the pattern in the shapes over several weeks.
In this lesson, students will learn about the moon phases by participating in a variety of activities. First, students participate in a class discussion about the moon and explore moon phase cards. Next, students will work in groups to create different moon phases using cookies. Last, students will create a moon phase flipbook and participate in a month long study of the moon's phases. This lesson includes printable moon phase cards and charts.
In this activity, students will investigate the different phases of the moon using sandwich cookies, twisting the cookies so that all of the frosting is on one side leaving the other side bare. The cookie with the frosting is the full moon, and the bare cookie is the new moon. The students will then scrape half of the frosting to create ‘half-moons’. Half-moons are best to start with as they are placed in between the new and full moon.
In this three day unit, students discover what is in the day and night sky, and learn interesting facts about the sun. Students will create their own journals to record ideas about the day and night sky, participate in class discusiions about the sun and the moon, and conduct an experiment using the sun's heat to warm water in different colored cans. This unit includes reproducible student sheets.