Monday, August 1, 2011

Our Moon

Our last week of summer challenge is here, and we are focusing on space. It has been a great 6 weeks of trying to avoid the summer slide, of our child's education, that tends to happen over summer. Thanks so much for Pink and Green Mama, Teach Mama, and Naturally Educational for creating this journey for us. To start out this week I wanted to take a closer look at our moon. After reading some great books (and there are so many great books on the moon out there) I had "A" make a Phases of the Moon poster. The fun part is we painted the white of the moon with a mixture of white paint and flour to give it texture, an idea I got from I Heart Crafty Things. To make craters we used pencil erasers and soda caps.

Flour and paint concoction
Close up of the full moon

Speaking of craters, I decided to play a fun, science game of problem solving with "A". I took a Tupperware that was rectangular and shallow. I filled it up with mixture of flour and salt. After leveling out the ingredients I sprinkled cinnamon, so it would be easy to see the craters (paprika would work too). Then we picked out 5 different items to make craters with (marbles, beads, soda caps, pennies, etc.) Next at about 12 inches I had "A" drop the items into the tray and then gently remove them. Then he saw if I could guess which item made which crater. Then we switch the roles and have him guess after I drooped the items. "A" wanted to play this about six times! I finally said let's save it to see if he can fool Daddy. Follow up with the discussion of what makes the craters on the moon. Since we know different objects make different craters what does that mean for the craters on the moon?


Some of the crater makers we chose
Can you guess what made each crater?
Some of the books we read:

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