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Moon Phases & Painting Impact Craters on the Moon

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Moon Phases & Painting Impact Craters on the Moon

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This activity teaches children about earth and space, while also using art and history. For this activity, we picked out a constellation to create. While doing this, it was important to figure out how many stars were apart of my constellation and where they belong. We also had to research our constellation to learn more about how it got its name and why. This activity can be fun for children as it uses a variety of subjects all in one, while mainly teaching them about different constellations we can look for in the night sky.

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The egg parachute experiment was a fun and open ended activity. It teaches children about gravity and leaves room for creatvity for how they want to create their parachutes. It also touches on engineering as the students are trying problem solve how their parachute should be built in order for it to work. My group left various materials for our classmates to use and left it up to them how they wanted to design it. It was interesting to see all of the different ways they made their parachute or how they protected their egg from cracking. We all learned that in order to make this activity successful, we should check the weather first as the wind impacted the experiment and one egg parachute landed on the roof.

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Making homemade ice cream as a science experiment was not only fun, but there's a lot of science concepts that go into it, such as measurement, gross motor when shaking the ice cream in a bag, and a chemical reaction between the ice and salt. Some things we have to consider while doing this activity is checking to see if any students have an allergy to the ingredients.

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New Moon: The moon is located between the sun and the Earth. We usually can't see the new moon.

Waxing Crescent: The moon travels east in the sky. We will see a tiny sliver of it after the new moon, typically a few days after.

First Quarter: 1/4 complete. We see half of the moon in this phase.

Waxing Gibbous Moon: Occurs between the first quarter phase and full moon phase. Waxing means "growing larger," while gibbous refers to the shape. Making waxing gibbous mean "growing shape".

Full Moon: Occurs when the sun and moon are on opposite sides of Earth.

Waning Gibbous Moon: Waning means decreasing, meaning the shape of the moon is decreasing. This phase lasts until the moon is half illuminated.

Third Quarter Moon: Opposite of the first quarter moon; when the moon phase is 3/4 complete.

Waning Crescent Moon: The final stage of the moon phases. This starts when the sun illuminates less than half of the moon until the new moon phase begins; the moon and sun rise at the same time starting the cycle over.

Constellation: A group of stars forming a recognizable pattern and traditionally named after its form or identified with a mytholgical figure.

Gravity: A force of attraction that pulls together all matter.

Chemical Reaction: A process that involves rearrangement of the molecular or ionic structure of a substance.

Dichotomous Keys: A key for identifcation of organisms based on a series of choices between alternative characters.

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These activities go together as they are both focused on the moon. For the Moon Phases activity, we used Oreos to create the different phases. First, we had to understand what the phases look like and what they mean. Before doing this activity with students, the teacher would have to check for any food allergies.
We also made puffy paint out of shaving cream and regular paint to create a moon on a paper plate. The focus of this activity was to make the impact craters that are on the moon using marbles. Before we did this though, we researched some facts and had a discussion about the moon so we already had an understanding of what causes the impact craters on the moon (usually from meteorites).

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I think all of these activities that I mentioned are great for children to use as a way to learn more about science. Some of the activities that I might want to try with my future students would be the moon phases activity with Oreos. I hope to teach kindergarten or 1st grade, so I think this activity would be perfect for that age group. It's a simple and quick example of the moon phases and was really fun to do! Using hands-on materials like Oreos makes it much more likely for the students to remember the phases of the moon. Much like we had in class, I would project the phases on a screen for the students to look at for support.

Another activity that I enjoyed, but didn't mention was making lava lamps. This activity touches on chemical reactions and can be used a sensory tool in the classroom as well. I would probably use plastic water bottles to make them non-breakable and keep them somewhere in my classroom for future usage when a child is having a tough time and needs to regulate their emotions, as it has been found that children are often mesmerized by watching sensory bottles and are used to help calm them down.

Lastly, I also enjoyed using the dichotomous keys. They can be used for many different things and touches on problem solving skills. I would probably use these keys with older students (4th grade and up), but one way a teacher could use this with their students would be idenfitying the different plants we see around Maine. This benefits a child's learning as it allows them to quickly and easily identify unknown organisms. Living in Maine, we are surrounded by nature and various plants and being able to identify them can be helpful since some may be poisonous or some may be interesting to investigate deeper and learn more about. I also enjoyed using the dichotomous key while dissecting owl pellets. We had to determine what the owl digested according to the various bones we found as we were dissecting the pellet and looking at the key for support of who the bones belong to. This would be a really fun lab activity to do with upper elementary aged students!

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Bringing pets to class was a fun way to learn about the benefits that animals can bring to children. Having a pet in the classroom helps students with their emotional and mental growth and teaches them responsibility. A science activity to do with young children and pets can be as simple as observing the pet's behavior. We also measured the pets to compare them in size. Doing this with children is possible, but I would keep it to one pet at a time. Possibly the teacher brings in a class pet and gives the students responsibilties to take care of the pet each day. Also, some schools do have therapy dogs which has been shown to promote positive moods, anti-stress effects on the body, and academic and social growth.

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I wonder why science isn't as focused on as other subjects, such as math or literacy. A lot of the schools I have been in don't really focus on science or do fun science experiments with students like we did during class. I know that when I was in elementary school, my science consisted of worksheets and I didn't enjoy it at all. However, taking this course made me realize that science can be fun and not as hard as I felt it was.

While taking this class, I was surprised to learn that science is truly all around us. When we see an animal track, we can turn it into some sort of science activity with students, such as identifying animal tracks using a dichotomous key. We can even use our pets as a part of our science learning. Many things that I would've never imagined can be traced back to science.

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https://www.earthsciweek.org/classroom-activities

https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/index.html

https://jr.brainpop.com/science/

https://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/experiments/

https://coolscienceexperimentshq.com

https://www.sciencebuddies.org

https://www.youtube.com/c/scishowkids/videos