First grade students have been learning about the moon over the past week and a half. Through shared read alouds, videos, nonfiction, and fictional selections, students continue to expand their vocabulary and practice all important reading comprehension skills and strategies such as connecting to prior knowledge and examining cause and effect relationships.
In learning about the moon, first graders are watching the moon to learn about each of its phases. We have been and will continue to record these phase on our class chart. Please encourage your child to draw a picture and identify the following phases on their moon calendars at home: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter moon, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter moon, and waning crescent.
Finally, in conjunction with today’s lunar eclipse all of our classroom activities were integrated into learning about the moon. Literacy activities included matching moon related vocabulary terms and definitions, generating and illustrating moon compound words, assembling dials to demonstrate moon phases, and writing moon acrostic poems. Students solved math problems to solve moon riddles, assembled sun, Earth, and moon orbiters, and created paintings resembling the moon’s surface. Painting textured moon surfaces to go along with moon descriptions we have been writing and typing, was a favorite activity among students.
