When You Wish Upon A Star

My third graders have been learning all about the Sun, Moon, and Earth this 9 weeks. I absolutely LOVE this science unit and always look forward to teaching it each year. This year I added some new activities that my students loved! We began
our unit with a trip to the Catawba Science Center with a viewing of a sweet planetarium show all about the sun, moon, and Earth. ( what a perfect tie in, right!) Then while still in the planetarium, they were each given a moon ball (Styrofoam ball on a wooden dowel). The lights were turned down low and a lamp was turned on in the middle of the room symbolizing the sun. My students were able to turn their bodies and see each phase of the moon. I was awesome to

see their wheels begin to turn as they were able to identify the different phases.

Nothing is better than connecting food into our learning. I love creating edible lessons. To continue our unit on the phases of the moon, we created each of the phases using Oreos. My kids loved making these and loved eating them even more! We also created flip charts of each phase. They might be in 3rd grade, but they still enjoy coloring, gluing and cutting to make crafts.

Yet another edible science activity was making constellation models using mini-marshmallows. They loved creating these and were very precise about putting them together. We wrapped up this unit by making constellation tubes using Pringles cans. Overall, it was a great unit and more importantly my students learned way more then if we had just read from a text book!