This post contains affiliate links. I was compensated for my work in writing this post.
Join us as we do a moon unit study! We will explore the phases of the moon through hands-on activities. We are continuing our study of Earth and Space by Bright Ideas Press, and we have arrived at the outer space chapters. There is a super cool lunar observation chart in the book, which my kids filled out for 28 days as we looked up at the moon each night. (No, we didn’t howl like coyotes while doing so!)
When you study the moon, be sure to look through some binoculars at least, since you can see the craters of the moon in greater detail. You can also use a telescope to see even more details.
One hands-on activity from the book was to draw the phases of the moon on paper plates. We drew them with pencil, outlined over the pencil with black marker, and colored in the moons with black crayon. We also made an Earth on one of the paper plates. We stuck them all to the wall, and the kids were able to learn the phases of the moon by matching the plates with the labeled index cards.
We used Oreo cookies to do the phases of the moon according to the Bright Ideas Press chart from the book. You can see a simplified version here, where there are only eight phases. I decided to use black poster board and a silver Sharpie marker to make the chart. We opened the Oreo cookies and made moons out of each one, placing them into the chart.
Take a look at how we did these activities:
