Moon Phases With Cookies

Science is my favorite subject, but it generally requires a mommy that is not on bed rest to execute properly. So, our science projects these days have been few and far between and have all been very simple and easy to do. My plan is to put science on a back burner until summer. Then, after the new baby comes and I can get out of bed, we will being tackling this year's science. However, this is a project that  can be handled from my easy chair and done mostly without my help.

It's a given that if bribed with sweets, you can get kids to do just about anything. So, this is a science lesson that has been done many, many times by many, many teachers both at home and in traditional school settings. My kids are gluten free, so they only see these kind of cookies maybe once every year or two.

We started our lesson by going over the phases of the moon. There are several sites online you can do this with. We used this one by gwit.org. I couldn't get the intro video to work, but the site has several other interesting facts and little demos about the moon. It even has a spot to type in your weight to see what you weigh on the moon.

I started by drawing 8 circles in a circular pattern then labeled the small circles with the 8 phases of the moon shown on the site. I used the lid to a gatorade bottle to draw the circles. Gluten free sandwich cookies are generally a little smaller than their original counterparts, but the gatorade bottle lid was the perfect size for us. The girls used a case knife to pry open the cookies and then scrape and spred the cream in the desired positions. They looked at the chart on the above site to see the order and how much of the moon was showing in each phase. Then, they put the cookies in order. After they were done, they got to eat the cookies. Finally, they used their papers to draw in the moon phases.