Moon

After we learned about the sun, we moved to learning about the moon. We watched this video by Story Bots.

We then read from the National Geographic book about the moon. We read that the moon does not shine by itself, it reflects the light from the sun. So we went into the bathroom, turned off the light, and used flashlights to reflect light off of the mirror. 

Next we read a poem about the moon and colored a picture.

Next we discussed the craters on the moon and how they were formed when meteorites and asteroids hit the moon. Naomi and Isaiah collected rocks from outside while I prepped the 'moon'. I put a good layer of flour in the bottom of a baking pan. We put the pan on the floor and the kids dropped a rocks onto the surface of the moon. We took the rocks out of the flour and noticed that we had made craters. Here is where I got this idea. 

For phonics we focused on the 'oo' pattern. Isaiah colored pictures and matched the words. Naomi worked on writing words with this same pattern. This activity is free! 

For math we played a game called Race to the Moon. Naomi and Isaiah played this; I helped Isaiah. Each kid took a turn rolling the die and moving their piece that many spots. Naomi practice saying the numbers up to 100 as they each moved spots and Isaiah practiced counting up to 6.

Naomi also solved the following word problem. The moon had 10 craters. Then it got 8 more craters. How many craters does the moon have now?

To practice writing, Naomi wrote sentences using words with the diphthong 'oo' pattern. This sheet is also located in the phonics link above.

Our moon craft was making a moon picture out of homemade puff paint. We used bottles to make the craters in the moon. After the craters were made, we put our paper in the microwave to make it puff up. The moons only took about 20 seconds. We did some more artwork after this and bigger pieces of paper with more 'paint' took about 45 seconds to puff. Once it was in the notebooks, Isaiah practiced writing the letter M and Naomi wrote a sentence describing what she learned about the moon.

I taught the kids about Neil Armstrong and gave them a brief overview of the missions to the moon. While I was cooking dinner one night, they played in the flour (aka moon dust) with some astronauts and space toys I ordered off of Amazon. This made a HUGE mess, so be warned. But, it also kept them entertained for a very long time!

We also had some moon snacks during our studies. 

Our moon made out of a rice cake topped with peanut butter and Cheerio craters

Phases of the moon cookies