The Phases of the Moon

We spent the class learning about the phases of the moon.  We started by using a flashlight (for the sun's light), a large rubber ball (for the earth) and a small, white, plastic ball (for the moon) to illustrate exactly why the moon goes through its phases.

As the moon goes around the earth, the part of the moon that the sun lights up appears to change in size.  Actually, it's the part that we can see from earth, since there is always half of the moon illuminated by the sun.  The phases are:

1.  New moon, when we can't see any of the lit part of the moon.
2.  Crescent moon, when we see a sliver of the moon.  Waxing crescent means the part we see will get bigger.
3.  1st quarter, or half moon, when we see half of the moon.
4.  Gibbous, when we see more than half of the moon.  Waxing gibbous means it's still getting bigger.
5.  Full moon, when we see the entire lit side of the moon.
6.  Waning gibbous, when we see more than half the moon, but waning means it's getting smaller.
7.  3rd quarter, another half moon.
8.  Waning crescent, when we see a sliver of the moon, but waning means it's getting smaller.

We watched these two movies to illustrate the concepts:

Then we did an art project about the moon phases, cutting and gluing moon shapes onto our night sky paper.
One last thing we talked about was eclipses:
A lunar eclipse is when the earth perfectly blocks the sun's light from hitting the moon.  A solar eclipse is when the moon perfectly blocks the earth's view of the sun.  Both are somewhat rare because the moon's orbit around the earth is at a different angle than the angle of the earth orbiting the sun.  Only 5 degrees, but because the sun is so large, it's enough to result in eclipses being very uncommon.

A blue moon is when there are two full moons in one month.  It is not very common either.