Moon Phases

When I was studying early childhood education, I learned a lot about the Reggio Emilia approach to teaching. It made me want to pack up and go teach in Italy. The main ideas that I took from it were that learning has to be child-directed in order for it to be successful; when you respect and believe in a child, they will amaze you with what they prove to be interested in and excel at.

I ask Delaney what she would like to learn about on a regular basis. Sometimes, she has a silly answer like knock-knock jokes, but sometimes her answers are completely out of the ordinary. Last Sunday, I asked her what we should learn about and she replied, "The moon."

She loves looking at the moon in our clear desert sky, and is always asking about its various appearances. We went to the library and found a book on the phases of the moon that was written at an appropriate level.

We read the book on Monday and remembered to go outside and look at the moon that night. It was a quarter moon, and over the last week it has been working its way toward a full moon, which we will see tonight.

We found pictures on the internet to look at, and read some story books about the moon. I just happened to run across this cool idea on Pinterest the same day that Delaney requested some moon knowledge, and I knew we had to make it!

 
I have to tell you, it did make me feel like a good teacher when she said, "Mommy, can we do our moon phases?"

Once Delaney could identify all of the moon phases, it was Oreo time!

We simplified it a bit to match the book.

I did the cutting, but she pointed to each phase and told me what it was. She got to eat the oreo creme for knowing the right answer. :)

We did a little test once we had put it all together.

Awesome!

Now we will move onto other things in the night sky...stars, planets, etc...whatever interests her most!