Peek-a-Boo Moon - Exploring the Moon's Phases

Students will learn about the phases of the moon through stories, crafts, song and dance, and keeping their own moon journal for four weeks.

Each class session will include sharing our moon journals, reading a book together, singing and dancing, and making a craft or playing a game. 

Students will be encouraged to share their observations of the moon and their ideas about the moon. The teacher will read books aloud, showing the pictures and words to the students. The teacher will also be displaying the phases of the moon via slides, and students will receive a downloadable phases of the moon matching game that they will play in class, and can keep and play later with friends or family.

Week 1: Introduction to Moon Phases. Students will observe the various phases of the moon through a powerpoint and discuss how moon phases happen. We will start a moon journal, read part of The Moon Book, by Gail Gibbons. We will learn a Moon Phases song from the Como Planetarium, and practice the moon dance with the song.

Week 2: We will share our moon journals from the previous week. Our book for today will be Many Moons, by Remi Courgeon. We will create a Moon Phases slider, and sing the Moon Phases song from Como Planetarium.

Week 3: Students will share their moon journals from the previous week and compare and contrast their observations. We will read a science book about the moon, So That’s How the Moon Changes Shape, and the teacher will give a physical demonstration of how moon phases happen. Students will create a coloring sheet of moon phases and name each moon phase. 

Week 4: Students will share their moon journals from the previous week and compare and contrast their observations.We will talk about cycles, and read the Eric Carl book, Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me. We will play a memory game with moon phases cards, and students will have a copy to make to play at home.

Week 5: On our final day, we will share our moon journals and observe how the moon came back to the phase that it was when we started observing the moon. We will work collaboratively as a class to write and illustrate our own book about the moon. We will review the favorite games, songs, and activities from the week.