Category: preschool

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Preschool Science: More on the Moon

Last week I posted about studying the moon in Alpha Omega Horizons preschool. We are still wrapping up study on the moon, and I thought it interesting to point out that right away we went from a fuzzy grasp of the concept of “half of something” to a solid understanding as soon as we looked at half of a moon.

As we have been notating the weather on our calendar, we added a little sketch of the stage of the moon (helpful if you have a calendar that has one on it already). My little preschooler saw a half of a moon on the paper then ran to the window to report that is what he saw!  Lightbulb on!

It marks the beginning of an understanding of fractions, something I am not starting to teach deliberately, but which we will start to introduce as we run across it: “Can you eat half this pizza?” “Share half of your cookie with your brother”, etc.

He also right away grasped the concepts of crescent moons and waxing and waning, which we try to use in ordinary speak if possible. Although that’s a tricky one. Try it..

A fun activity we did at Alpha Omega’s prescription was to draw a picture of a suitcase of things to be taken on a trip to the moon. What a great imaginative activity!

Here is what my little guy packed for the moon:

We have:

  • an apple to eat
  • some grapes
  • his puppy to sleep with, and his brother’s bunny
  • a tent so he can sleep on the moon
  • some track, in case he wants to play trains on the moon
  • and a juice box to drink

With suitcase in hand, we pretended to blast off in our space ship, supplemented by a youtube video showing the shuttle cockpit during launch to fuel the imagination. We flipped switches and communicated with mission control.

We flew to the moon, pretending to experience high G forces for launch and then we got out and walked around the moon, experiencing lighter G forces as we bounced along and drove our moon car.

We talked about what gravity was, and that we have 1G here, 1/6 G on the moon (more fractions!) and several Gs during launch if you are an astronaut.

And another fun thing: we ate moon lunch with crescent shaped peaches and phases of the moon sandwiches. Of course, the juice box had to be there because he had “packed” it to take to the moon!

I decided we need to incorporate more crafts in our homeschool. Anyone have any moon craft ideas? Leave a comment and spell it out for us- I’m craft-challenged!

Be sure to go check out the rest of the Hip Homeschool Hop, at its new location at the Hip Homeschool Moms new website!

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Preschool Science: The Moon

This week, we discussed the phases of the moon while using Alpha Omega Horizons preschool.  We are still working on Day 4 of creation.  We had been discussing the sun, and now we are on to the second great light to govern the night.

A YouTube video was helpful in illustrating the moon phases.  Certainly more helpful than acting out the sun, moon, and earth in their rotation around each other.  Of course, this might be because I enlisted the help of my 2-year old who was supposed to be the sun.  But the sun quickly arced off, spinning, to collide with the wall, the couch, and the dog.  Then the sun ran into one wall unintentionally and came crying back over to the moon (me) and the illustration just really didn’t go like I’d hoped.  So we found the youtube video:

Once we had finished watching the video, we did the Lunar Cycle game found at http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/moon/moon_worksheet/moon_worksheet.html On printing the worksheet, we will be able to record the phases of the moon each day, either in late afternoon or early morning.

We also took advantage of some of the printed words on the youtube video to learn to sight read “waxing” and “waning” and we sounded out “moon”.

We haven’t tried these activities, but they look perfect for preschool, from PBS Kids lesson plans.  Click this link for a few “Day and Night” activities.

What tools have you used to study the moon? Leave a comment and share some with us!

For more fun and interesting preschool topics, be sure to head over to The Preschool Corner!

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Preschool Science: Sun, Time, and Cats in Space

Today using Alpha Omega’s Horizons Preschool, we are learning more about the sun, God having created it on the fourth day of creation, and how it is used to govern the day. We learned that the day is comprised of 24 hours, and that the clock is used to indicate what hours those are. Our first introduction to telling time! Alpha Omega does a great job of tying everything together, in this case it blends science with math, sort of like a big creation unit study. A great way to showcase God’s creation using everything our little preschooler sees around him.

In today’s lesson, we are working on memorizing Genesis 1:16: “God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

We are learning how the earth spins as it orbits the sun, even though it looks like the sun is moving around us.

We are discussing the difference between daytime and nighttime, with which activities go with each.

We watched some Youtube videos showing gravity, astronauts being weightless in space, a cat weightless in space, and astronauts in training in the back of the aircraft that simulates weightlessness by flying in a parabolic arc. We talked about Zero gravity, and “0G” “1G” “2Gs” and looked at a video of the moon landing to see the effects of gravity on the moon. The big takeaway from these videos was that he thought it was cool that the weightlessness video was set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” song.

And after that brief diversion, we got back to business and got these printables on the clock from homeschoolmath.net to supplement the worksheet from Alpha Omega.

For Christmas… do they have Dinosaur Train watches? If not, definitely Cars or Thomas, I think….