This week, we studied the moon and the letter "M". I have been super excited about this week because there were so many activities that I wanted to share with the kids.
First we had many facts to learn about the moon and how it compares with the Earth. So we started out our week by watching a video about the moon. The kids learned that it is made of rock, has craters on the surface and some moons have volcanoes.
We baked a "moon cake" to celebrate our findings. Each crater is filled with something different. One has baking soda, one vanilla and the other oil. Of course we had to add vinegar to the baking soda to make a volcano. And we added dairy free chocolate chips as "moon rocks". So fun and yummy (after baking it, of course)!
We also discussed the phases of the moon. I used creme filled cookies to demonstrate some of the phases. I would have completed all the examples, but Caedmon was VERY upset that I was opening the cookies and taking out (and maybe even eating!) parts of the creme fillings. So this was a far as I got in the demonstration!
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I also wanted them to have a general understanding of the relative distance from the Moon, to the Earth, to the Sun...so we did this little experiment in the backyard. They were bored after a we created the sun, so I only made them help me measure a quarter of the distance. The moon is 1/8", the earth is 1/2" and the sun is 4'6".
Caed liked taking the tape measure all the way out!
The distance between the earth and the moon on the paper that Abby is holding is 14". The relative distance to the sun is 490' (1 and 1/2 football fields) we only measured out 125'. That white spot on the ground, past the lawn chair, near the woods is our sun.
Once we learned all we needed to know about the moon, it was time to build our rocket ship! Thank you to Lowes for a giant stove box! And thank you to my awesome, creative husband who assembled this masterpiece! The U.S. Perry (named after Perry the Platypus).
Next they boarded and I played the part of Mission Control. We had the count down. Caed was the pilot and Abby the scientist.
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| Ready to take off! |
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| The control panel. A stop and go button, a movable lever and Asgard on the screen. |
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| First leap onto the moon! |
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| The moon dust is soft. |
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| Moon dust angel |
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| Picnic on the moon. It was tough to keep things from floating away! :) On the menu: dried apples, and blueberries, banana chips and Mountain Man dried soup. |
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| A first taste of mountain man dried soup. |
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| An alien was spotted. |
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| And captured for testing. |
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| It's a high security area. No pictures please! |
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| Alien blood (this was an experiment from a science kit we got. they created this "blood" with daddy) |
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| Abby kept careful scientific notes in her moon journal...including a raccoon that only comes out during a full moon. |
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| A map (with a gas space station included) and a check list for take off. I'm discovering that Abby LOVES check lists, just like her momma! |
