This is one of the hardest things to get a good photo of, and mine certainly do not do it justice! We’ve had a lot of fun though learning about the moon, even if we haven’t been able to see it for half the week due to heavy low cloud. Today’s session was kicked off by learning about the moon’s phases, and understanding waxing, waning, crescent, and gibbous. We chatted about the phases and what was happening and what we could see in the sky.
The discussion then moved onto the full moon types throughout the year. We looked and learnt about the full moon names throughout the year. To help us look into this, we had the most gorgeous moon phases poster from wilder child. You can take a look over on her website at http://wilderchild.com/2017-full-moon-dates-calendar/ or the home page http://wilderchild.com/ you can download a printable version, and my three have loved theirs. We have stuck them into their nature journals (and one for me too of course!). We then drew our own versions of the moon’s monthly phases into the journals as well. The mini men are really starting to get into their drawing in their journals now. Mini man no.2 was drawing large craters in his, and then a crescent moon (complete with a man fishing on it!!), and mini man no.1 drew a huge moon, with a worm on it ( for March’s full worm moon), plus craters, space rocket, space car, meteors, and people looking up at the moon! Quite a lot of detail for my little men.
After we had completed those, next came the tasty moon study part. We did the phases of the moon by Oreo biscuits!! Needless to say this went down very well (not so well the part where they couldn’t eat it until they had showed Dadda later!).
Before we headed out to chase down the moon, we snuggled up for our poem (The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson), and our books for the week. The suggested reading was “Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me” by Eric Carle, and we added Moomin and the Moonlight Adventures to it 🙂
They have really enjoyed looking at this topic this week, and it has really caught their imagination. The mini men especially are asking lots of space/astronomy related questions, and it is lovely to ignite their curiosity and their passion for learning (and see some fruits from your labour as a parent!!!). For the rest of the month we are continuing to do a moon journal….everyday we shade in a circle to show the amount of moon we can see lit up by the sun, and do the shading on the correct side of the circle too. By the end of the month we should be able to look back and see the waning (as we started with nearly a full moon) and the waxing of the moon pattern.
The Nature Curriculum we use is, “Exploring Nature with Children. A complete, year-long curriculum”. It is a beautifully written framework, written by Raising Little Shoots, and can be found over at https://raisinglittleshoots.com/It suggests a topic for the week, and then provides some background information and suggestions for nature journaling and outdoor exploring. It also provides a comprehensive suggested reading list (fiction and non-fiction) for each week, plus a poem and a piece of art to study. There are extensions activity ideas too. We use the topic as the theme for our week, and follow the ideas for our journaling, and one fiction book. What we have been doing from the curriculum can be found on our curriculum overview post. The craft, science, maths, and English ideas we have researched ourselves to fit in with the theme 🙂 This makes a learning a lot more nature based.