Realizing that this is a standard I am going to teach the week I get back, I figured it was time to get a jump on things and create a unit to use that week!
The standard is that students are able to tell about things they see in the day and night sky. We always go a little bit deeper into our study of the moon. Students learn about the phases of the moon. We talk about the atmosphere of the earth compared to the atmosphere of the moon. Students do an experiment with “moon” sand. They create craters by dropping marbles into the mixture.
One of my favorite books to tie literacy into our unit is Owl Moon.
Good news. If you don’t have the copy of the book, you can find it on YouTube. We do a visualizing lesson with this story so make sure you don’t show them the illustrations the first time through!
I also stop the book and give students 3-4 minutes to sketch their mental picture and then we dive back into the story. We go back and add color to the pictures after the story is finished. I also let them look at the illustrations and compare their pictures to the illustrations in the story. Here is a freebie from the unit for you to use!
We will also sort day and night sky pictures, keep a journal of the day and night sky for 3 weeks, and do our crater science experiment! Here are the activities in this unit.
I am excited about using this unit in the classroom! It will be discounted through Thursday of this week!
I love Owl Moon also. I have not shared that one this year with my students yet. So many awesome books, so little time.