Teaching the Phases of the Moon to Gradeschoolers

Probably by now, you must have read my post on the Phases of the Moon for preschoolers.  If not, I highly recommend that you do for it will give you ideas on how to introduce the moon’s phases to kids from ages 2.5 years and older.

We’ve been discussing this topic almost every year, and for this year, I wanted to give Mavi something different. So here are the materials I prepared for him:  wall chart of the moon’s phases, a booklet for definition and nomenclature cards. 


As you can see, the nomenclature cards this time are more advanced than the ones I used with Vito.  I find this more suitable for older kids for retention because Mavi is often confused between the waxing and the waning gibbous.

I started discussing the content of our wall chart for an overview, and then he proceeded in reading the definition of each phases.  I love that he can work on this independently. 

Next task was for him to match the labels to the picture cards.   I told him he can use the booklet for reference.


Here’s a poor man’s puzzle of the phases of the moon which we have been using since he was around 3 or 4 years old.  This is so easy and simple to make!

Last was for Mavi to complete his Moon calendar. We spent some days observing the moon and recording it,  but most of the time it’s zero visibility. So to complete his calendar, I made him copy the rest of the October calendar and mark the next full moon (for us to see!).  Vito as always, wanted to be part of Mavi’s activity and insisted to make his own moon calendar. 

We are looking forward to the November 14th full moon! Hope we’ll be having clear skies so we can view it from our yard.
 
Mavi said that he really liked our materials for this year.  The positioning of the moon are more clearer and the description are easy to grasp. And now Mavi understood why he can sometimes see the moon in the mornings and afternoon!

So what do you think of our unit? I’d love to hear your thoughts

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