Special Features

Printable Version

• To have the students bite out the phases of the moon using Nilla Wafer cookies.
  
• To keep a record of the phases of the moon in order by tracing the cookie pattern.

Phase,
Gibbous (swollen on one side),
Waxing (growing),
Waning (shrinking),
Crescent

• http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/vphase.html
  
• http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/java/MoonPhase.html

Moon Phase foldable
Nilla Wafers (5/baggie/student)
Pencil

Anticipatory Set
"Tell me one thing that you learned about the moon yesterday."

Step-by-step directions
1. Pass out the foldable (an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper cut like a hot dog and taped end to end) to students and have them fold it in fourths. Open up the whole paper and lay it flat on your desk.
2. Give the baggies of Nilla Wafers to the students. They are to remove only one cookie at a time.
3. Take out one of the cookies, trace this whole cookie in box 1 and shade the entire circle in. This is called a New Moon and it starts the moon's rotation, or lunation.
4. Take out another cookie. Bite along the left side of the cookie carefully, until you get something that looks like a backwards C. Trace this in box 2. This is called the Waxing (growing) Crescent.
5. Take out cookie number 3. Bite off half of the cookie. Trace this in box 3. This is called the First Quarter moon.
6. Nibble along the right side of cookie number 4. Trace this in box 4- it is called the Waxing Gibbous.
7. Take out cookie number 5. This cookie will not be eaten. Trace it just like it is. This is called a Full Moon. It is completely illuminated.
8. Take the cookie from box number 4 and flip it over. Trace- this is called the Waning (shrinking) Gibbous.
9. The cookie from box number 3 will become the Last Quarter moon for box 7. Flip it over so it is facing the left and trace it.
10. The cookie from box 2 will become the Waning Crescent in box 8. Flip this cookie as well and trace.
11. Label all moon phases at the bottom of the paper. Eat all of your cookies or place them in your baggie, pass your phases to one person in your row (chosen by me) and turn papers in to the clear tray.

For the students that do not understand as well, I will pair them with other students to help them learn.

The moon phase foldable that the students make will be turned in and graded. They will use this to study for the Moon Phase quiz to assess as well.

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