Moon Phases are 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 let’s get to the really fun part and that’s learning the Moon Phases.
Phases of the Moon Hands on Learning
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 without food being involved. These Oreo’s are a favorite of the boys, 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.
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 its 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 paintings were the perfect way for us to end this moon unit.
If you are interested in a few other moon books that we enjoyed:
I hope you check out our Astronaut Sensory Play for this Unit. It was out of this world. You can also check out some other great learning activities on my Pinterest Science board.
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.
What a great way to learn about the phrases of the moon. I love this hands-on approach to learning .Thanks for sharing.
I can’t find anything free to download at the Montessori link provided, for the cards or chart. Do they no longer offer them or can you update this with the direct link to the section of the page?
The other blog changed their pages, but I did fix the link 🙂 Enjoy!
Awesome post! Thank you for linking up with The Natural Homeschool! 🙂
Enjoyed your solar system action packed and educational journey! Thank you for sharing your resources! Will be doing and definitely blogging your great post!
What a cute craft! We incorporate phases of the moon in our daily calendar work although I will admit it is hard to keep up! My sons are obsessed with pretending to be the earth and moon. I always get to be the sun. Thanks for linking up at the Virtual Sharing Fair. ~ Marnie
That’s actually a great idea, pretending to be the Earth, Sun… I’m adding that to our plans for the Solar System. Thanks 🙂
biscuits=cookies, sorry!
Very cool activities! My three year old was just asking about the moon phases last night, so maybe the oreo activity would be helpful for him. Although it may just go over his head 🙂 I would love it if you shared this on my blog hop today! http://teachingmama.org/ Thanks!
Shared it, Thank you. My 4 year old enjoyed it, however at 3 he might just want to eat the cookies. hehe
I don’t recall EVER learning the moon phases either! My sons and I spent some time learning about it this last year and did the Oreo thing! They loved it! We painted with shaving cream, it was so fun! I’m a homeschooling mama to 6, 4 and 2 year old boys with a girl arriving any day (I’m actually 2 days past my due date!)
Thanks for visiting, this was a fun unit for sure :)Congrats on your new baby
That looks so much fun! I love the cookies idea!
Thank you so much, it was a lot of fun 🙂