Your cart is currently empty!
Fun and easy Moon Unit for kids
You know what’s great about homeschool science? It doesn’t matter how many times people have written about oreo cookie moons as part of their moon unit, my kids haven’t seen it. So, it’s awesome and new to them. But, I still added in a few more ideas for our moon unit, just to make it extra fun.
Moon unit supplies
{This post contains affiliate links marked with a *. For more information read my disclosure page}
Oreo Double Stuff* (because if you’re going to use Oreos, why not go for broke?), CD (you know those things we used to listen to music on), flashlight
Moon unit activity 1: how does the moon get light?
Techinically the moon doesn’t have its own light, technically it reflects the light from the sun. Of course we don’t say that because that is boring, and nowhere near as interesting as “look how bright the moon is shining tonight.”
Okay, back to the actual post, and not my random tangent.
To demonstrate this we took a CD and a flashlight, better add that to the supply list, and headed into my rather dark closet.
Then we shone the flashlight onto the CD and we could see the light that reflected off of the CD onto our hands. It made for a rather great demonstration.
And because that’s the kind of teacher I am I then drew a parallel to God. How we are supposed to reflect God’s light just like the moon reflects the sun (Sneak in a bit of family discipleship in the middle of our science lesson, go team me!).
Moon unit activity 2: Oreo cookie moons
Most everyone has seen this activity, so I’m not going to spend too much time on it, besides to say it’s an awesome excuse to eat lots of Oreo cookies.
Awesome excuse.
The kids had lots of fun arranging their cookies to create the waxing and waning cycle of the moon in the frosting with their Oreos, so it was a good addition to our moon unit.
Moon unit activity 3: creating craters
This last activity in our moon unit is actually one we’d done before, so we made reference to it.
We simulated making craters on the moon using random objects dropped into flour. It helps explain the way the moon looks and why there are so many craters, and besides it’s fun to do.
Follow Ticia Adventures in Mommydom’s board astronomy for kids on Pinterest.
Moon unit resources
Comments
18 responses to “Fun and easy Moon Unit for kids”
Ha! That’s great! I was a science teacher for years, and taught the phases of the moon many times, but I’d never seen this idea before today. Thanks Ticia!
You’re welcome! It’s all the rage on the blogosphere. I’m sure it’s a bit of difference teaching it in a classroom where you’d have to buy enough cookies for every kid to have 5, and that might get expensive after a while.
Good point. Plus with all of the allergy concerns, I’d probably never even bother with this in my classroom. But it’s such a great idea. On another astronomy note, don’t forget to check out Venus and Jupiter tonight!
I was going to, but we have a major thunderstorm going on here, and have already lost power once. So probably won’t be able to see it.
Ok now I’m officially the ONLY one who hasn’t done the Oreo moon activity.
Ha ha ha ha, just study astronomy and you have the perfect excuse. Or eat lots of Oreos and claim you’re doing the moon unit.
Fun times! My guys also enjoy anything with an Oreo biscuit!
So they’re called biscuits over there? What is the difference between biscuits and cookies?
Looks like you had fun with this unit!
We did, it was so much fun to do together.
I like the CD reflection thing. We used a paper plate covered in foil, but a CD would be a lot easier.
Oh, that would be more difficult, but it probably created similar conditions to what the moon is like with the unevenness.
I didn’t do Oreo cookies, because I can’t stand them. I know, I am in minority here 🙂 Perhaps I can do something with Milano cookies instead 😉
Milano cookies would probably be harder, but certainly very yummy.
My kids have always enjoyed studying the moon, especially when it involves something as delicious as Oreos!
Exactly, you can’t go wrong with Oreos.
Hmm…I bet my youngest two don’t remember doing the Oreo moon phases – might be time to put it back on the list ????
Of course it is!
Leave a Reply