Craters and Moon Dust

We have wrapped up our study of the moon.  Mister is still talking about the moon, but Ladybug is ready to move one.  I saw a version of this activity in a moon book and thought it would be fun.  This activity was a hit.

Here are your supplies.  The marbles are for "crashing" into the moon and making craters.  We let the mixture sit for 30 minutes before adding our marbles.

Once the marbles are in the moon, let it dry for about 48 hours.  The marbles will pop right out.

We made a moon dust mixture using flour, sand, and gray grated chalk.

Next, we added glue to our moon and sprinkled our moon dust. 

Here is the completed moon.  Since our moons were swimming in glue, they took a long time to fully dry.

Moon Phase Matching

It seems that young children love nonfiction books, but quality nonfiction books for preschoolers and toddlers are hard to come by.  That is why I was thrilled to find a great nonfiction moon book at the library.  It is so new that Amazon doesn't have a picture.  It is short, informative, and interesting.  The book is Space Watch: The Moon by Chris Oxlode.

In the final section there is moon phase matching to night sky pictures.  Ladybug and Mister love to match the pictures, so I made our own set.  It took a few attempts to find good night sky photos, but I found an informative moon site with good pictures.  On the back of the cards, there are colored dots for the cards that match.

Moon Phases

I am a stickler for bed times.  I believe that a well-rested child is a happy child, so when I let the kids stay up to see the supermoon it was a big deal.  Of course, it clouded up right before sunset and stayed that way.  We couldn't even see the moon’s glow through the thick clouds.  I hope those of you who saw it enjoyed it.

Anyway, I put together this moon phases activity.  I started with 4 moon phases to keep it simple and the activity is self-correcting. They choose a moon phase and make the night sky scene with the felt pieces.  On the back of the card is a drawing of the moon.  They activity isn't their favorite, but maybe somebody's child will like it.